Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
It felt weird.
That was, it did until Core tagged my neck, pulled me to the side, shifting his long body while he did it.
We both ended lying on the couch, me tucked in front of him.
He pressed into me as he reached for a bag of honey-barbecue Fritos.
I reached for a beer, took a sip, then grabbed the Lesser Evil popcorn.
Core hit go on the remote to start a four-part doc on the whole sorry, creepy Warren Jeffs situation.
I sipped, munched, relaxed and enjoyed the fact that if I dropped some corn to the floor, I didn’t have to worry about having to clean it up later. Nanook did it for me.
Eventually, Core was finished with the Fritos, and he draped his arm along my waist.
I’d carried a lot of weight in my life, but that felt nothing but good.
Not too long after that, I fought it, because I didn’t want to lose all I had right then.
But it had been a tough few days.
So I lost the fight.
And, pressed back to Core’s front, his arm around me, I fell asleep on my couch in the curve of his arm, never having felt so comfortable.
Or so safe.
12
PURPLE PEN
Hellen
I woke up in my bed alone.
I hadn’t slept in it alone.
Somewhere along the line of Jeffs’s pedophilic misdeeds, Core’d had enough. He’d roused me by turning off the TV. He’d woken me by picking me up.
I was too tired to marvel at this feat.
“I can walk,” I mumbled.
I could, but after he put me on my feet, with the way I was listing, he spotted me all the way to bed.
I collapsed in it, and fortunately before I had to try to find the energy to say, “Don’t go,” he slid in with me.
He pulled me close. I fell back asleep.
In the middle of the night, he let go of me and turned.
I fitted myself to his back, my arm around him.
His fingers found mine and tucked them tighter to his body.
After that, I fell asleep again.
And now was now.
I got up on a hand in bed, looking around.
“Core?” I called tentatively.
Nothing.
No Nanook bopping in to say good morning.
I turned to my nightstand to see what time it was, and along with noting my alarm clock said it was five forty-three, I saw a piece of paper that had been torn from my grocery pad in the kitchen.
It was printed with pink lines and there were pink curlicues in the corners.
There were words on it in a bold scrawl in purple ink (which was the pen I had in the kitchen, and the only color pen I had in the house, save for pink, that said, the grocery pad was not something I’d purchase, too girlie, Mom put it in my Christmas stocking last year, along with the pink pens—I could do purple, but I wasn’t a pink kind of woman).
It said:
Babe,
Oh my God.
Pure melt.
Yes, he’d called me babe before but something about it on a nightstand note made it awesome.
Had to go deal with the Greeks. We need to brief about that.
Call me.
X
So he was gone.
He was also a man who left a note.
And more melt, he was a man who signed it with a kiss.
Needless to say, I got out of bed, started my morning gig, went to the kitchen to make coffee, went in search of my bag (I found it in the butterfly chair where Core obviously put it) and pulled out my phone.
It seriously needed a charge.
But I saw I had three texts from Marcy, and one each from Kyra and Bree.
They were wondering about the dinner with Dad.
I made coffee, grabbed one of my charge cords, took it to my bedroom and plugged it in by my vanity.
I then hopped in the shower.
I had my hair done and was putting on makeup when The Mandalorian theme sounded.
I looked down to my phone and the screen said the call was from Core.
A flutter moved through my belly.
But…
Whoa.
Heretofore I had not been a flutter girl.
But that was definitely a flutter.
I took the call and put Core on speaker so I could continue dealing with my eye shadow.
“Hey,” I greeted.
“You’re awake,” he pointed out the obvious.
“I am indeed,” I confirmed.
“So why didn’t you call me?”
“Uhhhhh…” I didn’t quite reply.
So his Call me meant immediately upon waking?
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that.
“You were a mess last night, babe,” he went on. “You doing okay?”
Oh.
Well then.
His Call me meant he was worried about me and wanted to know that I woke up and was fighting fit to face the day.
Shit, there went another flutter.
“I have puffy eyes, but other than that, I’m good,” I shared.
“Good,” he grunted.
“You used my purple pen,” I told him something he knew, and did it with a smile that could be heard in my voice, because Core and a color purple didn’t go together.