Total pages in book: 206
Estimated words: 192184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 961(@200wpm)___ 769(@250wpm)___ 641(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 961(@200wpm)___ 769(@250wpm)___ 641(@300wpm)
My phone rang, interrupting a meeting – a meeting that was dragging on enough as it was, and I didn’t need something else slowing it down. It was Sarah. I declined the call. Then I got a sinking feeling about Tia. I had seen her in my bed that morning and it’d stirred something in me that I couldn’t put my finger on. She’d been asleep in my shirt, the blankets kicked off, giving me a raging hard-on.
She’d been on my side of the bed, snuggled in to my pillow. I wondered if the only reason she stayed cuddled up against me at night instead of rolling away was because I was on her preferred side of the bed. But seeing her in my shirt just hit me hard. I had to stop myself from climbing on top of her. I got a quick shower and had left before she woke up. I was about to call back and then Sarah called again.
“Excuse me,” I said to Dare and to the three men I was sitting with, brokering a deal for a very lucrative upcoming construction project. I answered and stepped away, asking, “What is it?”
“That girl just spent twenty-five minutes crying on my shoulder like her life was over. She won’t talk, just keeps crying. What are you doing to her?”
The fuck?
I ended the call without a word. For fuck sakes. Few people in the world dared talk to me that way. Unfortunately, Sarah was one of them.
My head was barely in the rest of the meeting. Thankfully, Dare picked up the slack. By the time it was over I knew that Sarah and Tia would be out shopping. I called Earl to check in and make sure everything was okay.
Grocery shopping with a six-foot-six mean-looking Black guy in a suit along with a sweet Latina woman who never shut her mouth for more than five seconds was interesting. It broke up the boredom of lying in my torture chamber (a.k.a. his room), at least.
I was quiet, just pushed the cart while Sarah filled it and talked about recipes, about prices, about what was in season, while she asked me questions about whether or not I preferred crunchy or smooth peanut butter, about whether I liked fruit bottom or stirred yogurt. She told me what Tommy liked to eat, like I cared. But this was a diversion, at least, from the pit of despair I’d been in.
Earl was on the phone, saying, “Yes, Sir. No, no problems, Sir. Yes, Sir. Right, Sir. Fine, Sir. Bye, Sir.”
Fuck off and die, Sir, I thought to myself, or so I thought, but guessed I had actually muttered it aloud because Earl was staring at me with a funny little smile.
I tried to smile back; I definitely blushed. I was grateful I wasn’t being babysat by burly number one or burly number two or Tommy’s very intense angry brother. I guess I kind of liked Earl so far. He seemed nice. He had kind eyes. As kind and nice, I guess, as a guy can be who’s helping another guy hold me prisoner.
As my neck was coming around to face forward after smiling at him I saw my foster mother push an empty shopping cart past me. Rose! She made eye contact briefly, and then kept going. This wasn’t her neighborhood. She glanced back at me and subtly made the sign language sign for toilet.
I knew a bit of sign language because last year we’d had a deaf girl named Shelly live with us for four months. They were four hellish months because she was a nasty piece of work that brought too much drama to the house. Me and the other girls threw a little “Ding dong the witch is dead” party with chanting and everything when she was relocated.
Rose wasn’t happy about our celebration at the time, lecturing about being patient, trying to be helpful, and turning the other cheek, yada yada, but that girl had stolen something or another (clothes, money, books) from every one of us, had spread lies about Bethany at school and online, and she was just really unpleasant. Anyway, I knew a few signs because of that.
I waited until we turned another corner and then tried to be nonchalant. “Is there a public bathroom in this store?” I asked Sarah, careful not to look at Earl.
She pointed behind us. “Yeah, back by the customer service desk.”
“Okay, I’ll meet you in ice cream in five?”
She smiled at me, “You want ice cream?”
I smiled back and nodded. “Be right back.”
Earl said something to her and she took the cart from me. He followed me to the bathroom. I felt my face get hot. I didn’t make eye contact with him. Thankfully, he at least waited outside the door.
The bathroom had two regular stalls and one wheelchair one. I saw Rose’s feet in the wheelchair one, so pulled the handle and stepped in. She grabbed me and clutched me tight against her.