Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75547 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“It’s… cozy,” she shares, careful.
“That a polite word for small?” I unlock the door. She gasps and I shake my head. “It’s okay. Judge it, I don’t give a fuck. It’s small. It’s mine.”
“I didn’t mean to offend,” she stammers.
I let out a laugh, “if I was that easily offended then I shouldn’t be wearing this cut.” I lead her through the front door and allow her to process my space.
Inside’s clean because I don’t like living in a mess. Couch is thrift-store leather, gray with a tear in one corner I patched with duct tape before I learned I preferred the chair. There’s a table that’s seen better days and a galley kitchen that hums like a beehive because the fridge thinks it’s important.
One bedroom. One bath.
Nothing I don’t need.
She stands just inside the threshold like she’s afraid it’ll bite or swallow her up. Her eyes skate over the walls. No pictures, just a map tacked up with pushpins that mark runs we’ve done, places I’ve slept on the cheap, a route I keep meaning to try and never do. I hang my Hellions cut over the back of the chair in my kitchen after taking off my boots. My boots line up by the door like soldiers. My mom would absolutely lose her shit if she showed up to any of her boys’ homes and we didn’t take our shoes off at the front door.
“You can put your bag down,” I tell her. “No one’s gonna steal it.”
She nods and drops it like it’s heavier than it should be. Her hands are still trembling. She tries to still them.
And she fails.
I point toward the bathroom. “Shower’s through there. Towels on the shelf. Brand-new toothbrushes under the sink.” I open the cabinet so she can see the rainbow pack—ten count. “My mother’s got this idea I’ll die if I don’t have extras.”
“You… your mom buys your toothbrushes?” Something about that loosens the panic in her eyes by a tiny bit. The idea of a man with a mother who does store runs must not fit next to the leather and the patch concept she has.
“Among other things,” I remark, frankly. “She hits a warehouse store once a month. Calls me from the aisles and asks what I’m out of. I say nothing. She ignores me and buys two of everything sometimes more. I haul it in and pretend that she read my mind and I would be lost without her. She’s my mom and I’ll do anything to make sure she smiles and feels like she’s still takin’ care of her boys.”
Her mouth does a small thing that could turn into a smile if her world wasn’t currently on fire. “That’s… nice.”
“It’s efficient,” I correct, because nice sits wrong on my tongue. “Saves me a trip and makes my mom happy. You want food?”
She shakes her head too fast. “I don’t think I could…manage to eat anything.”
“All right.” I jerk my chin toward the hall. “Go wash off the day. There’s a lock on the door.” I say it like information, not invitation. Her shoulders drop a fraction.
She edges down the hall like she’s walking into a test. The bathroom door clicks. Water starts—pipes thumping, then settling into a steady rush. I stand in my kitchen with my hands on the counter and stare at the knife block I never use for anything but opening boxes. The house feels smaller with her in it. Not in the bad way. In the way that makes you aware of every square foot. My chest feels that way too.
It’s a long shower. I don’t clock the minutes on purpose, but I can’t help it. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. The day bleeds out of her and swirls down my drain. Good.
While she’s in there, I do the stupid little things that matter. I switch the sheet on the bed for a clean one because I don’t remember the last time I did that and suddenly it matters; it matters a lot. I shake out a pillowcase and pull it on, smooth it flat with my palm. I have a housekeeper that my mom picked out. I know she changes my sheets and shit, but I couldn’t say when because all of the bedding is black and red, she rotates through it, but nothing ever looks different.
I dig in the bottom drawer for a T-shirt soft from a hundred washes and a pair of clean boxers I don’t hate. I check the water heater like I can bully it into not quitting tonight.
Steam finally billows out under the bathroom door. The water cuts. Silence drops with it. A minute later, the door opens and she steps out wrapped in one of my towels. It dwarfs her. Her hair’s damp, combed back. Her face is stripped clean—no makeup, nothing to make her look like the world expects. Pretty in a different way.