Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 49669 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 248(@200wpm)___ 199(@250wpm)___ 166(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 49669 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 248(@200wpm)___ 199(@250wpm)___ 166(@300wpm)
What the fuck?
“This one’s your favorite, right?” King said as he grabbed one of the books and began flipping through it. “Gio got it on his Kindle, and now he’s hooked on the whole series,” King continued. “He’s not the only one,” he added with a small smile.
It was painful to watch my friend try and draw his nephew out. King had told me about the events of Christopher’s childhood and how their own bond had been established. Christopher’s real uncle, Micah, had raised his nephew pretty much single-handedly in an abusive household. Thankfully, Christopher had escaped the worst of the violence, but only because his uncle had taken it all upon himself. Christopher hadn’t been left unscathed though. A violent encounter in the house had led to Christopher and his younger sister fleeing as Micah had fended off the attacker. Fortunately, King’s brother, Con, had had a history with Micah and had been outside the house, along with King, in his car. As Con had gone to help Micah, King had followed the children.
I knew the version of events I’d been told nowhere near covered the horror of it, but one thing was clear. Whatever had happened between Christopher and King that night had bonded them as uncle and nephew, not by blood but of the heart. If King was playing hardball with Christopher, things had to be pretty bad.
“I’m sorry you brought them all the way over here, but I told Gio to just throw them away if he didn’t want them,” Christopher murmured. If I hadn’t been looking at him, I might have believed in his dispassionate statement, but the way the young man looked at the books when he mentioned throwing them away was actually painful.
King sighed, seemingly unsurprised by the response. “Talk to me, Christopher…” my boss said so softly I almost didn’t hear him. King was the hardest man I knew, so for him to ask the young man like that… well, it just fucking sucked.
As much as I wanted to hear what Christopher’s response was, I’d already been privy to far too much, so I eased out of the kitchen in the hopes of not drawing attention to myself.
Mission not accomplished.
One second, I was turning around and heading for the door; the next, I was doing some not-so-fancy footwork to avoid a kitten that had appeared out of nowhere. Unfortunately, my forward momentum made it impossible to maintain my balance, and I pitched forward. I somehow managed to stay on my feet, but it wasn’t pretty as I stepped forward in an almost slow-motion running fashion while trying to regain my equilibrium. Inopportunely, the tiny orange ball of fur decided to escape in the same direction and once again ran straight in front of me. Knowing that even just the weight of my foot could crush a part of the kitten’s body, I instinctively reached down even as I began falling. I managed to scoop up the freaked feline and cuddled him to my chest as best as I could as I twisted my body so my back would take the brunt of the fall.
When it was all over, I was sprawled out on my back on the very hard floor with many, many mini razor-like claws embedded in my chest. To make matters worse, several pieces of what had once been some kind of side table were scattered around and beneath me, proving my pride and the freaked-out ball of fur hanging onto my chest hadn’t been the only victims of my clumsiness. The glass that was near my hip indicated there’d been at least one other victim of the melee. From the size of the pieces, I guessed I’d managed to take down a lamp, shattering the bulb in the process.
“Oh God,” I heard someone cry. Definitely not King, so that left Christopher. My body hurt like a son of a bitch as I shifted my weight a bit before detaching the kitten from my chest. The pitiful little thing was making soft mewling sounds but otherwise seemed to be okay. Before I could sit up, Christopher was at my side.
“Careful, there’s glass,” I said as I took in Christopher’s bare feet. Instead of him risking cutting himself by getting too close to me, I lifted the kitten toward him as best as I could. Predictably, he snatched the little thing up and hugged it to his chest. I dropped my head back down as I took stock of my injuries, which I knew were nowhere near as severe as the hit to my pride.
“You okay?” I heard King ask. I could hear the humor in his voice and knew I wouldn’t be hearing the end of this for a long while. I had my eyes closed, but I could already sense his presence standing above me, probably near my feet.