Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 140629 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 703(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140629 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 703(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 469(@300wpm)
“I’m good.”
Caspian enjoyed the way Gunner stared at him without comprehension before wiping away what was left of the earlier tears.
“Your parents are nice. The pancakes were delicious. The soft bed gave me the best sleep of my life, and I don’t even like peanuts. So fuck you sideways.” Gunner showed him the finger but the scowl on his face was adorable rather than threatening. “Go deal with my life if you think I had it easy.”
Caspian stopped smiling the moment he remembered the confrontation from earlier. “Actually, your buddies want me to move drugs. You’re seriously worse than I’d thought. I don’t believe in drugs!”
Gunner’s pink lips twisted into an ugly smile. “You figure it out. Or you won’t have anything to eat. Up to you really.”
Caspian laughed in his face. “You’re what? Twenty-five? And you haven’t achieved a thing. A smarter man could milk so much more out of the assets you’ve been born with!”
That rubbed the smirk off Gunner’s face, but he remained still under the blanket, which meant that this morning’s lesson must have sank in. Good.
He licked his lips. “And you’re supposed to be gay? Your wardrobe sucks ass. I could live your life so much better. You got everything handed to you on a platter.” A weak comeback, but what could one expect from the likes of Gunner?
“Oh, really? We shall see what I can turn your miserable existence into with some intelligence and skill.”
Gunner got up and walked over to the bedside table with only the bottom part of his legs showing from under the blanket cape. Caspian seriously needed to get laid because even the pink toes were getting him horny. To his disbelief, Gunner pulled out the small wad of emergency cash he kept in the underwear drawer and held it out to him.
“Feed my cat. Pay Snowman. This will get you through two weeks of debt. You pick up the drugs at the Coconut Bar. The password to get to the basement is air fryer.”
“I will not pay off your debt with my hard-earned savings!” Caspian said the moment the money was in his hands. He couldn’t believe this bastard’s audacity!
The smug smile spreading on Gunner’s youthful face made Caspian want to punch the fucker. “You don’t want the fallout, but suit yourself. Do you think I’ll just get pancakes for the rest of my life if you go and get yourself killed in my body?”
“How much do you even owe?”
Gunner shrugged. “A hundred grand or so.”
Heat burned the back of Caspian’s neck. “‘Or so’? You don’t even know exactly how much? I could just beat the fucker up and be done with it. Why haven’t you done it?”
Gunner shook his head. “You’ve got no idea how this works, do you? The Snowman is just the collector. You touch him, and you’re dealing with bigger fish. Seriously, just pay the man if you don’t want to spend the time you got in my body in a hospital.”
The sense of safety Gunner’s body had given Caspian was slipping from under his feet. Russo might be fucking with him, but he was correct when it came to one thing—Caspian didn’t know how the criminal underworld worked. Not beyond the things one could see in stupid crime shows with holoscreens and instant lab results. And if he was to survive his first clash with it, before he learned his way around, his only choice was to trust Russo’s word.
“Fine,” he said and spun around, heading off to meet his destiny. His new body might have come with problems, but he’d untangle them all.
"Fine!" Gunner yelled after him. The damn gorilla always needed to have the last word.
Chapter 5 Gunner
Gunner was so tense he expected his tendons to break like threads that had been stretched too thin, and the relief at the sound of the door slamming downstairs was so great he collapsed onto the bed in a state of shock.
His heart still thudded like mad, and even though he’d tried to put up a front, the encounter with a man so aggressive and so much bigger than him left him sitting motionless and unable to calm down. Terrified.
He’d been in some nasty fights since his teenage years, but had forgotten how it felt to be this frightened. No matter how much he’d writhed and kicked, it had done nothing against Caspian when the fucker was armed with Gunner’s body. It took him back to being a ten-year-old boy, at the mercy of a father who was not only twice his size but also often came home drunk, or on drugs.
While it was obvious being small had some disadvantages, Gunner hadn’t expected it to affect him so viscerally.
And as if being squashed like a bug hadn’t been humiliating enough, he’d gotten a boner on top of it all. If he made his mind blank enough, could he forget that embarrassing moment ever happened?