Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“I’ll call you back.” I press end.
“Mornin’, peaches.” His voice is a low, husky growl. “How ya feelin’?”
No. No! This is not happening.
“Lowyn?”
My head slowly turns to the left and this is when I see the Jeep. It’s not the same Jeep, obviously. That thing was already forty years old when he left here for the Marines twelve years ago. But there is a Jeep in my driveway.
Correction. His driveway.
And this Jeep is sleek, and black, and lifted, and… ya know, like… sexy. As all fuck.
“No.” I say it out loud this time. Just a small whisper. But he’s barely a breath away.
“Oh, this really is happening, Lowyn. It really is.”
I turn and there he is. Collin Creed. The man who broke my heart. The guy who joined the Marines without even discussing it with me, left town, and never came back.
Until now, apparently.
He’s smiling at me, his eyes dancin’, laughing at me. “You don’t remember anything from last night, do you?” He points over his shoulder. “Can we talk about this house of yours?”
“Get out.”
“In fact, let’s start with that bedroom.”
“Get. Out.” I point at the Jeep, my finger shaking.
“Lowyn.” He laughs out my name like it’s a joke. “You didn’t even take down the Jim Morrison poster.”
“Get. The fuck. Out of my house!”
“Your house?” His smile falters. His voice lowers. His eyes narrow. “Your house, Lowyn? This is my house. What the actual fuck have you done to it?”
“It’s not your house. I bought it from your parents eight years ago, you asshole. It’s mine now.”
He points to himself. “I grew up in this house. There are still marks on the fucking bathroom door that say ‘Collin, age eight.’ You bought my childhood home, turned it into a retro freak show, are sleeping in my teenage bedroom, and didn’t even take down my fucking posters?”
He guffaws now. And I go fire-hot with anger and embarrassment.
Collin taps my head and I step back to avoid contact, but not fast enough. “That’s mental, Lowyn. Completely fuckin’ mental.”
I push past him, trying to get back inside. In this same moment my phone rings again and he blocks me with an arm.
I look up and meet his eyes. Oh, God. Those fucking eyes. With those mesmerizing swirls of golden brown mixed with sea-foam green. They are so familiar, but at the same time distant and strange.
Twelve. Years.
I yank my arm from his grip, go inside, and slam the door right in his face.
Amon is kicking back on his bed—feet stretched out, PlayStation controller in hand, machine-gun sound effects blaring—when I get back to the motel on Route 60.
He is blond, he is blue-eyed, he is broad, and as dangerous a man as they come. But he’s smilin’ right now like a kid on Christmas Eve.
That’s funny. Kinda. True—the Christmas Eve part. People say that all the time because kids are happy on Christmas Eve. They have presents coming. But here, in these parts, where he and I both come from, Christmas Eve comes with a whole other kind of happy.
I kick Amon’s duffle out of my way and slam the door behind me with a foot while pushing my sunglasses up my face.
Amon glances over at me. “What’s your problem?”
“Nothin’.”
He smirks. “Nothin’, my ass. I bumped into Rosie Harlow at the Rise & Shine when I was getting coffee this morning. She said you drove Lowyn home from that pub in Bishop last night. What the hell were you doing in Bishop? I mean…”—he laughs—“you could’ve gone over to Revenant. That’s where I was last night. And Lowyn? That was unexpected. Especially after all the protesting you’ve been doing since we came up with this plan.”
“I’m failing to see a point here.” I walk past the beds, heading for the shower.
“We’re not here so you can reconnect with your high-school sweetheart, Collin.”
I pause my retreat to look at him. “Says the guy who’s having breakfast with his parents this morning. I’m not reconnecting anything. I drove her home because she was wasted. And do you wanna know where she lives, Amon? Take a guess.”
He doesn’t answer right away, too busy with his virtual battle on screen. But he’s grinning so I’m gonna guess that he does.
“My house, Amon. She sleeps in my fucking bedroom. She’s still got my posters on the wall.”
Amon almost spits out his laugh. “Shut the fuck up.”
“I swear to God. The Doors, Led Zeppelin. Ozzy. Everything’s still there. There’s even a few old shirts of mine in the closet.”
“Shut. Up.”
“She’s mental, right? She’s crazy.”
“Wow.” He pauses again so he can kill someone in the game, then chuckles and puts the controller down. “That’s really weird. She lives in a shrine to you?”
“Yeah. It’s… disturbing. There’s something really wrong with that girl.”
Amon laughs. “Come on. It’s just Lowyn. She’s cute and harmless.”