Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 75248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Then, for the hell of it, I put a load of laundry into the washer and pulled the cold ones from the dryer.
After folding them and putting them in my suitcase, I started to gather my belongings.
The bedroom was where I started, and since the entirety of the apartment was furnished when I moved in, the only thing I had to grab from in here were my sheets, my clothes, and my shoes.
The bathroom was just as easy. Since nothing beside the shower curtain (which you bet your ass I grabbed) and the hair care products, makeup, and toilet cleaners were mine, it was easy to shove them into another bag I’d previously used for the gym.
Then I moved to the living room that really didn’t have much other than a few magazines.
Magazines that could stay.
While I was contemplating what to do with said magazines, toss them or hang every single page up on the wall that had anything suggestive to it at all, I heard a knock at my door.
I glared at it, knowing in my heart it was Travis, and growled.
Checking the peephole to confirm my suspicion, I yanked it open and glared at the man who looked like he hadn’t ripped my life apart the day before.
“I’m sorry,” he said the moment he saw my face.
I shrugged.
“I’m getting out of here by tonight,” I said. “What do you want?”
Travis brows furrowed.
“Have you given anymore thought to the rental house? The occupants just left yesterday; likely it’ll need to be cleaned first,” he explained.
I shook my head.
“I’m not staying at your rental house if I’m not working for you,” I refused stubbornly.
I wasn’t a person that accepted handouts. Handouts came with expectations that I’ll owe the person that gave me the handout someday.
I wasn’t that kind of person. If I wasn’t earning it beforehand, I wouldn’t take the handout, simple as that.
And if I wasn’t working for Travis and Dante, I wasn’t living in their house.
No excuses.
“Why not?” he asked.
I glared at the man.
He was sexy, that was for sure.
His head of brown hair and ice blue eyes didn’t hold a candle to Wolf, though, and that rankled.
“Because I don’t want to be beholden to you for a handout that I can’t begin to pay back,” I replied.
“So where will you go?” he asked, confusion that I wasn’t taking what he had to offer.
“I’m going back home, I guess,” I responded, despondency leaching into my voice even though I didn’t want it to.
My money that I’d saved during the trial was gone.
I’d gotten complacent here.
Bought new clothes.
Paid off my debts and put a down payment on my piece of shit car.
And it was a piece of shit. My piece of shit, but still a piece of shit, nonetheless.
“You can’t go home,” he replied. “You don’t have a home to go home to.”
I did have a home to go home to. In fact, I had two. Although both places were in separate towns.
The first one was the same place I’d been staying in while I was in Kilgore awaiting Jensen’s trial. It was the same place that July owned that was across the street from the place where July and PD had made their home.
I’d been the only one to live in it, and I got the invitation from July on a weekly basis to come back and stay in it. For some reason, she was holding it vacant for me in case I wanted to come back, and even now, after four months of me being gone, she still had it at the ready and waiting for me.
The other place I could go was back home to Karnack.
I had a home there.
I paid for it. It wasn’t much, just a two-bedroom shotgun house that was the size of a Cracker Jack box.
There was a couple renting it from me on a monthly basis, and they were on a month-to-month lease, I just had to give them ten days’ notice to vacate if I needed it back.
They were fine with those terms, and it worked for me.
I gave them the rent for a song on the condition that they would move out of the house if I ever needed it. They also did the upkeep and any repairs that were needed on the house if any were to ever arise.
See, I had options!
“I have places I can go,” I replied without giving him any information to go on.
His eyes narrowed.
“You can’t stay with Wolf. He’ll ruin your life,” Travis said so viciously that I took a step back.
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
His eyes narrowed.
“That’s who you’re going to stay with, isn’t it?” he asked. “I’m serious. Wolf likes to ruin lives, one broken heart at a time.”
I smiled a tad bit evilly at him.
“You’re not my brother, Travis. You’re my employer, or ex-employer. I can stay with whomever I want, and if that includes a man that went out of his way to make sure that I survived, then I’ll sure as hell do it. Because I’m an adult, and I can make my own informed decisions if I have to,” I growled.