Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74225 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74225 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Brandon started laughing. Full out belly laughing. “Oh my shit I have to call Ralph right fucking now,” Brandon said reaching into his pocket for his phone.
“Why?”
“Because, your boyfriend thinks I’m straight. Who better to appreciate the humor in that than MY boyfriend?” Brandon said. He smiled as his thumb clicked across the screen.
He had a point. The situation would probably be funny to me.
Someday.
Brandon was just about to hold the phone up to his ear when the crowd erupted in cheers once again. I looked to where Thia and Bear were in the front and he was planting a big kiss on her mouth.
“Preppy, you’re fucking next!” someone shouted, and I realized it was Billy. His mason jar now only half of what it had been ten minutes before. “Don’t drink the water over here or you’ll be getting hitched!”
At the sound of his name my stomach flipped. Brandon had finished dialing and was holding the phone to his ear. I heard Ralph on the other end saying “Hello? Baby is that you?” Brandon opened his mouth and was about to speak but stopped when someone on the other side of the crowd chimed in.
“Actually, I got married before these two beautiful big fucks,” the voice slurred.
Preppy.
The crowd was quiet. A few people in the front shuffled around and parted and that’s when I saw him again. This time he was standing on the edge of the fire pit where Bear was standing only seconds before. “In fact, my wife’s here tonight,” Preppy said. He looked around and spotted me with Brandon. Our eyes locked and he pinned me in place with his gaze. He lifted the bottle in his hand in my direction. He swayed slightly. “This is for you, Doc. Isn’t my wife beautiful folks?” I felt a hundred set of eyes shift toward me. “Don’t worry about the bleeding guy. That’s just my wife’s finance who I just punched in the fucking face.” He threw the bottle into the fire which cracked against the brick. Flames shot higher into the sky as he jumped down and disappeared from view.
Several people were calling out his name, including myself.
Brandon might have been the one Preppy hit, but I felt as if he’d punched me square in the gut.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
PREPPY
Life was fucking loud.
And Doc was fucking engaged.
She kissed me.
Noise was everywhere and anywhere.
Whispers, laughter, chattering, music, tires on the gravel, birds in the trees. Even the low buzzing of King’s tattoo gun in the next room had jack-hammer-esque quality to it that made my pulse pound in my head.
With each passing moment the noise grew louder and louder until I was face first on the mattress covering my head with a pillow and screaming into the sheets over the ear torture of everyday life.
I’d come to the apartment so that Doe, I mean RAY, and King’s kid could have her room back but also because I thought it would be quieter.
I was wrong.
The last straw was a motherfucking cricket sitting just outside the open window. I jumped to my feet and darted from drawer to cabinet, discarding contents to the floor. I was so focused on my search I didn’t hear Bear come in until he spoke up from the doorway. “Something I can help you look for?”
“My gun. Do you know where it is?” I asked without looking back at him. “Did you keep it or throw it away like the rest of my shit.”
“Fuck you. We kept your shit for a long time and you know we don’t throw away guns.” Bear tilted his head. “You got someone to kill?”
“Fuck yeah I do,” I corrected.
“You gonna tell me who?”
“Why is it all so fucking loud!” I shouted, opening the last cabinet in the kitchenette, pushing aside the pots and pans with no luck. I slammed the door and headed to the bedroom to start on my search there.
“Uhhhhh hear what?” Bear asked, following me into the bedroom and then the bathroom.
“Fuck, it,” I finally said, giving up my search. I turned to Bear and held out my hand. “Let me use yours.”
“First tell me who it is you thinking of killin’,” Bear insisted, placing a protective hand inside his cut over his gun.
“You really don’t hear that?”
Bear looked around and even briefly closed his eyes before opening them again. “I don’t have a fucking clue what you’re talking about.”
“Close your eyes again. Fucking LISTEN,” I snapped, growing frustrated. My mind racing.
The second Bear closed his eyes and removed his hand off his gun I reached inside his cut and before he could stop me I shot through the open window, blasting the little green bug into smithereens and in the process exploding the piece of faux marble covering the window sill and shattering the glass of the window when it fell from its locked position.