Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112249 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 561(@200wpm)___ 449(@250wpm)___ 374(@300wpm)
Chapter 28
It never failed to amaze Malachi how the world managed to get a laugh at his expense. He glowered at the glowing front of the vending machine that had stolen his toonie and counted it as a single loonie—a two-dollar coin being counted as a single. He didn’t carry a lot of change to begin with, so the couple of dimes and nickels in his wallet wouldn’t get him to the extra seventy-five cents he now needed to get the bottle of water. Seventy-five cents he wouldn’t have needed in the first damn place had the vending machine counted his first two-dollar coin correctly.
To make matters worse, the machine appeared like it had seen much better days. If the damn thing was younger than him, he wouldn’t believe it. Even the warning sticker and last machine check date was so old it had faded and peeled beyond recognition.
There wasn’t an obvious refund option on the buttons, so he could try the toonie again on the off chance the machine might count it correctly the second time.
Located at the far end of the lobby, he couldn’t even give the machine a good smack without drawing some attention. The juncture between the blocks and the cafeteria for the manor, it seemed like the lobby saw a lot of movement between staff, residents, and guests.
Malachi wasn’t trying to cause a scene.
Yet.
It was hard to believe a fucking machine could test his patience, but here it was. Malachi blamed his stretched-thin nerves on the fact he’d been looking over his shoulder ready to stare into a familiar face from the moment he walked through the front doors of the manor. He did his best to ignore it, and thankfully Gracen hadn’t noticed, so his effort wasn’t for nothing. Although, even as the minutes crawled into hours, he’d not been able to shake the paranoia.
Like his gut was trying to tell him something.
“Did it eat your change?” came a voice from behind him.
“Yeah,” Malachi said, swinging away from the machine in just enough time to see a dirty blonde slide past him. “There’s no change return.”
“There was. It’s been broken for a long time.”
She leaned in around the side of the machine, and grabbed the wire trailing out from the back. Giving it a yank, the cord’s plug popped from the socket. Instantly, the coin Malachi had previously shoved into the vending machine clanked down into the slot where the change should return. All it took was her plugging the machine back n again for it to whirl alive once more and for the buttons and counting screen to light up again.
“Someone must have torn the note off,” the girl said, turning around in her standard scrubs.
Malachi came face to face with his little sister.
She smiled wide, face unmasked—not like his—and for a second, clearly didn’t recognize him. If he were honest, it took him a blink or two to put the young woman’s face in front of him on the chubby-cheeked child that had once been his constant shadow. Her eyes were still the very same, though. A perfect match to his own steel-blue.
“It only takes exact change, and it miscounts a lot,” she explained, glancing back at the machine.
Malachi blinked again.
Speak, he told himself. Say fucking anything.
Alora turned back around with a beaming smile, but her gaze remained down on the messenger bag slung over her shoulder as she dug inside for something unseen. “If it happens again, just unplug it to get your change out. They really should buy a new one,” she said with a shrug of one shoulder and a dismissive wave of her free hand. “It’s so old they can’t get the parts to fix what’s wrong with the counter and change return, I guess.”
“Huh.”
His exclamation came out soft.
Barely louder than a breath, even.
At the same time, Alora found whatever she needed in her purse. A pair of car keys, it seemed. She produced the black fob and ring of keys at the same time she glanced back up at him. Maybe it was because she took a moment to really look at him that time, her gaze mapping from the bridge of his nose upward to his eyes, and brows.
Her eyes narrowed.
The recognition bloomed.
Malachi tugged on the bottom of the medical mask to pull it down around his jaw. Being that she didn’t smile back, but he couldn’t stop the curve of his lips all the same. It wasn’t her fault that after all this time and silence—before her private life and church could even be factored in—she didn’t know how to feel about a run in with him.
“Hey, sissy,” he said.
Whispered, really.
For a pause, while time seemed to stand still in the bustling lobby around them, the two didn’t move a single muscle. Not to look away. The keys in her hand didn’t even jingle. Until they did when all at once, Alora swallowed the fob and key ring in a clenched fist that didn’t quite hide the way her hand shook.