Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“About time you answered the phone. Listen, we need money,” my Uncle Woody said without preamble.
I closed my eyes and wished the ground would swallow me up.
For years, I’d done my level best with this man to keep him out of my business, but it was like he couldn’t take the hint.
He wanted to continue torturing me in my adult life like he had in my child one.
“I can’t talk right now, Uncle,” I said stiffly, looking into Rose’s guilty eyes.
I winked at her, hoping that she would get rid of that feeling bad bullshit.
She was just trying to help.
“You’re going to have to talk right now,” Woody said stiffly. “Because your grandfather is about to freeze to death, and I need to buy him a generator!”
Without thinking, I pulled away from the woman in my arms, yanked my jacket off, wrapped it around her, before taking my phone and all but yelling, “You haven’t seen your own father in a year, Wood. He’s been living at my house. What would you getting him a generator do when he lives in my house?”
Woody scoffed, unable to see the big deal.
Like. Fucking. Always.
“What good it would do is for me to get him over to my house if the power goes out,” he lied.
There would be no getting him there.
Woody and his wife, Merrina, lived in downtown Dallas right off one of the busiest interstates in the state. One that was already said to be closed down. There would be no getting to Pops until whatever this bullshit that was about to hit us passed.
And he knew it.
The only good it would do was to give him power.
And honestly, if they all froze to death, that would be too good of a death for them.
Which was horrible of me to think about.
I mean, I was a doctor, for Christ’s sake.
I took the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm.
A doctor shouldn’t want his family to freeze to death.
Yet, there I was.
“Sorry, but I can’t drop you off a check,” I lied.
I wouldn’t be dropping him shit off, snow or no snow.
“Venmo!” he tried.
“I don’t have, nor will I get, Venmo,” I disagreed almost immediately. “I gotta go. Our shuttle is here.”
There was no shuttle in sight.
What the fuck was taking so long?
I hit the end call button, then turned it on silent and shoved it in my pocket.
It started ringing immediately.
“What was that about?” Rose asked quietly.
I’m not really sure why I entertained her question, but I was so mad that I didn’t stop to think about it before the words were already pouring out of my mouth.
“I’ve spent years with that man all up in my business,” I grumbled darkly, sifting my quickly freezing hands into my hair. “It’s times like these that I want to block him and never take another one of his calls. But I know he’ll just use someone else’s phone to call me and ask for shit.”
“So what’s the story with your family?” Rose asked, worried now.
That pit in my stomach started to widen.
I hated talking about my home life.
It was depressing, not only for me to explain it, but for people to hear it.
“I…” I trailed off, unable to figure out where to start to even explain.
Surprisingly, Val had my back.
“He was taken in by his uncle and aunt when his mom died. When that happened, they got a substantial check that pretty much paid for their lives. They and their kids got to live off of Felix’s mom, going to private schools, getting their colleges paid for. Meanwhile, Felix got a whole bunch of nothing. He was in the same clothes when he arrived that he was when he left for college.”
She was right.
And she sounded freakin’ angry.
She’d always hated my uncle and aunt, and I’d always loved having her on my side like that. It was nice to be fought for, even if it came years and years too late.
Not even Tammy knew the whole story like Val did.
When Tammy and I met at seventeen, she had no idea that at home, I was miserable.
She only knew that I didn’t get along with my ‘parents.’
Hell, it’d taken me a solid two years to tell her that they weren’t actually my parents, but my aunt and uncle.
“That sounds horrible,” Rose said. “You wouldn’t think that you were raised by demons.”
I snorted out a laugh, unable to stop the sound from escaping my throat.
“Demons is very apt,” I said with a sigh. “My family leaves a lot to be desired. I can’t tell you how many times I thought about filing for emancipation. The only good thing I can say is that I graduated at seventeen, and I was allowed to head to college before my eighteenth birthday.”
Val made a growling sound in the back of her throat, but before I could look at her and tell her how cute she was, the transport bus slid to a stop beside us.