Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 403(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
I gesture around. “Nowhere. This is what’s called a hike.”
She laughs and drinks her coffee. “You hike? You don’t strike me as the type.”
“Only sometimes.”
“It’s way too freaking hot to go hiking.”
“That’s why we’re doing it early.” I step up a boulder and pause to admire a copse of cacti and scrub bushes. The red sandy landscape is gorgeous, and the striated patterns and layers in the cliffs around us speak to the millennia it took for this place to form, and the millennia it’ll take for it to break down again. The landscape is shifting, liquid, always changing, only on a scale that we can’t experience.
It’s heady fucking shit and I’m tired, which makes me philosophical.
She keeps up without complaint. Last night was good—very good—up until she made a run for the bathroom. I kissed her, like a pathetic fool, and I think it scared her away. Malcolm and his waitress joined us after that and it wasn’t the same. The energy between us deflated and she did her best to avoid me without making it seem like she was avoiding me. She didn’t dance with that same raw, sexual energy anymore, and she didn’t look in my eyes like she wanted to drop to her knees and gobble down my cock right there on the dance floor.
But I felt it there with her, the sizzling excitement, the pure desire and lust rolling between us. For a dozen songs, we were rolling together, doing something akin to making love, but different, on another level. It was pure and animal and physical, and it made me feel so alive again in a way I haven’t experienced in years.
I lead her along my favorite trail. It’s not a long hike, but it’s mostly uphill. After twenty minutes, she begins to struggle, and I coax her into keeping pace by keeping up a steady stream of mindless chatter, asking about her favorite movies and TV shows and music. She clearly hates it, but she’s a trooper. Eventually, we crest the hill we’ve been working on and come to a stop.
Ahead, spread out like a banquet feast, is the valley.
“Wow,” she says softly as the early morning sunlight slants across the rocks, the cacti, the bushes. It’s a gorgeous view, and from this distance, it’s easy to see that the desert is alive, very much alive and green and shimmering in the slight breeze. It may be dry, yes, but it’s living and growing, crawling and reaching toward the sunlight. I stand close to her, drink my coffee, and breathe the clean air deep into my lungs.
“I want to tell you about Sonia.”
The words come out quickly. I know if I wait, I might never do this.
She stiffens in surprise. I don’t look at her. I’m not sure I can face her right now. The memories are so sharp and deeply ingrained in my mind and as soon as I start to relive them, no matter how distantly, I won’t be able to keep the pain from my expression.
“You don’t have to,” she says, but I hold up a hand.
“I want to. Maybe I wasn’t fair, throwing you out the other night. There are things you should know about me.”
“No, Gavino, it’s okay. You were right. I shouldn’t have pried.” She sounds somewhat panicked now. Maybe she’s afraid I’ll leave her here in the wilderness.
I nod slowly and release a long breath. If I’m going to do this, I’d better do it before I lose the courage. “I met Sonia at a club a lot like the one from last night. She was a bartender.”
I close my eyes, remembering Sonia’s smile, her dazzling teeth. She had this way about her, like she was drifting through the world riding on a cloud and existing in a dream. Her long blonde hair was always slightly askew, and her deeply blue eyes were piercing and unsettling, like she was looking at me through a layer of crisp mountain water.
“It started out like it always does,” I say, rushing forward, gathering momentum before I convince myself to stop. “Flirting and fun. Nothing serious. But slowly, over time, she started coming around more and more, coming to the house, spending afternoons with Karah and Olivia and Mirella, and long nights with me. Even Elise was starting to like her, and Elise always hates blondes.”
“Is that why nobody married one?”
I smile and shrug. “Maybe, maybe not. Elise would like to think she has that kind of control over the family.” I stoop down and pick up a smooth, brown rock, rolling it in my palm. Jeanie watches me, chewing on her lip, clutching the to-go mug. “Sonia inserted herself into my life at a time when the Famiglia was going through a transformation. We were beginning to grow and started taking over more and more territory, squeezing out rival gangs, killing anyone that stood in our way. Those were good days, dangerous days, but good. We had a lot of enemies, and I thought I’d finally found someone that understood me.