Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88262 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 441(@200wpm)___ 353(@250wpm)___ 294(@300wpm)
The cool mattress hit my back as I lay down. I didn’t have much right now, but I finally had a good bed. Like a slice of fucking heaven.
I took out my phone, navigating to my messages with Max.
Draven Lyons
Where are you?
Max Baby Blue
Home.
Yeah, I knew that already.
Where are you?
In a hell of my own making.
How very emo of you.
I laughed softly, pulling in a long breath.
I moved the phone upward to snap a photo of myself, lying back on my bed. My shirt was half unbuttoned, revealing one of the tattoos that snaked out over my chest, and I thought Max might like a little look at that.
I sent it over.
Max Baby Blue
What’s the tattoo?
Draven Lyons
Knew you’d like it.
Didn’t say I liked it. But… I do. It’s gorgeous art.
It’s the edge of a Luna moth’s wing. Symbolizes newness, transformation. Change.
I hate change. Getting a little tired of it lately.
I just got done riding. You know, that thing you didn’t believe I really knew how to do.
Bravo, cowboy.
You ready to admit we’re going to fuck, yet?
You ready to finally tell me the real reason you’re in Tennessee now?
That’s third date material at least, Max.
If you think I’d ever date you, you’re crazier than I thought. Answer me. Why are you really in Tennessee?
I pulled in a slow breath.
There were too many things to explain to Max, even if I wanted to tell him my secrets. The truth was that I fucking hated having secrets.
They burned inside me.
It felt like carrying hot coals along with me, every moment.
I wanted to scream out the truth to him. To everyone.
To make the whole world know who my father really was—both how he’d cheated on my mother, and the darker stuff, too.
How he abused me and my brother as kids, only sparing the girls. Finally laying off of Xander when he became my dad’s mini-me.
But he never laid off of me.
I knew that wasn’t what Max really wanted to hear. He wanted some salacious story, some piece of gossip. He didn’t want to hear that I spent a good portion of my time as a young teenager bruised up. That I learned to hide a black eye, then eventually stopped hiding them—but I never admitted who had given them to me.
I hated those secrets back then, too.
Because secrets were only a hard fucking burden on my back. On my soul.
The scar along my face wasn’t from my dad—but it was because of him. I’d fought someone I shouldn’t have, and I’d slipped up, because I was seeing red after an argument with my father.
The worst scars were all internal.
There was also gossip, though.
The kind of gossip that other Montana families would have loved to know about mine.
That night, after I found Dad’s second cell phone?
Dad knew that I knew.
I’d proudly confronted him the moment he was sober the next morning. He’d kept a stiff upper lip, ignoring me until…
Until what happened a couple of months ago. I fucked up again, and almost ruined everything.
If it wasn’t for another one of Dad’s petty fucking business deals, everything would have been fine.
Maybe not fine. But better.
Draven Lyons
You’re a nice person. You have a nice life here. Just keep living it. And for the love of God, install a security system.
Max Baby Blue
Don’t need one. Just need you to be honest with me.
Thoughts swirled inside me like a brewing storm.
All the things I wasn’t going to say to him.
Lyons Agriculture had been about to score a merger with Franklin Cooperative. But Bill Franklin’s son had ended up in the hospital after a night at one of my parties. Devvy Franklin was 20, apparently, not 22 like he’d said to everyone before coming into my house party. He seemed a little green, maybe even naive, but eager to get his hands on a drink.
That 20-year-old had watched, wide-eyed, as my friend Griffin grappled with another guy and then he quickly wanted to show us he could do it, too.
When Griffin got in close to him, our mistake was obvious immediately. Devvy didn’t know how to fight. Didn’t even know how to defend. He ended up with a black eye and two broken fingers pretty quickly and gave up the fight.
He said no when I offered an ice pack, downplayed the injuries, and insisted he wanted to stick around for a good time. And when my other very beautiful friend Heidi arrived, Devvy ignored his fractured metacarpals and shared a bottle of rum with her in one of my hot tubs instead.
Then he cracked another bottle.
Then he ended up with acute alcohol poisoning at age 20 in addition to broken bones and a black eye… and a latent concussion that nobody knew about until he was in a hospital bed.
My father was furious when he heard from his friend who worked the graveyard shift at the hospital, and I didn’t blame him for being furious.