Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 141428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141428 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 707(@200wpm)___ 566(@250wpm)___ 471(@300wpm)
“Donovan!” he snapped.
“Going, going, sheesh.”
Hayes took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
Stop acting like a grumpy asshole and do what you need to do to help her.
He knocked on the door. “Devi? You okay, baby?”
Was that a sniffle? Was she crying?
Right. That was it. “I’m coming in.”
“No, wait!” she cried as he walked in to find her stuffing toilet paper into her panties.
What the heck?
Her face was bright red and there were fat tears running down her cheeks. He fucking hated that she looked so miserable.
“Baby, what’s going on? What’s wrong?” he asked as he made sure the door was closed and locked behind him. “What are you doing?”
“I, um, God, this is ridiculous. I need to go and buy myself some products.”
Products? What was she talking about?
Oh.
Suddenly it clicked. But why hadn’t she just asked him? Then he thought about that for a moment. Devi wasn’t like May who would have just bluntly told him that she needed sanitary products. She’d grown up with a mom and two older sisters.
Who had Devi had? Had her mom still been alive when she’d gotten her period? Who got stuff for her after she died?
You need to tread carefully.
Yes, thanks for pointing out the obvious, weird voice in my head that sounds like my dead wife.
He instantly felt terrible for speaking that way to May.
Sorry.
Urgh. Yep, he was definitely losing his mind.
“What sort of products do you like? And be specific. I know there are certain brands that May hated.”
“I . . . what?” she asked.
He crouched in front of her, cupping her good cheek.
“Oh God. What are you doing?” she wailed. “I’m sitting on the toilet with my panties down at my knees and I . . . I have my period!”
It was said quickly. And she bit her lip, waiting, as though she thought that was some huge revelation and she wasn’t certain of his reaction.
He found himself having to hide a smile.
Poor baby girl thought this was a big deal. But it wasn’t even close to anything he would consider an issue.
“I know, baby,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. “That’s why I asked you what you needed. You don’t have anything and we both know that toilet paper isn’t going to cut it.”
“It was just to get me by while I went out and bought some stuff.”
“And you don’t need to do that because I can go get the stuff for you. Tell me what you need.”
A small sob escaped her. A tendril of panic unfurled. He was supposed to be making things better, not worse.
“Or you can walk out there with paper-filled panties and pick what you want,” he told her.
“You . . . you have no idea how n-nice you are, do you?”
Nice? Him?
“Baby, the last word anyone would ever use to describe me is nice,” he told her.
“But you are.” She sniffled. “I don’t know anyone else who would . . . who would do this for me.”
He frowned. “What? Your brother wouldn’t go get you stuff for your period?”
“I don’t know. Maybe now. I never asked him to.”
“Was your mom alive when you got your first period?”
She bit her lip, then shook her head. “No, it came a couple of months after. But she’d prepared me for it.”
Fuck.
“Who helped you?” he asked.
“Rohan did. I didn’t have anyone else. He, uh, stole me a book from the library. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that we’d learned about stuff in school and that mom had gone through it. He was trying to be helpful. He stole some money off Derick and took me to buy what I needed. After that, I managed it myself. There were free products at school if you asked the nurse. And Rohan gave me money whenever he could.”
“Well, the good thing is that now you also have me.”
“You don’t need to pay for my stuff; I have some money.”
“Wasn’t talking about paying for them. I’m going to go buy them for you while you sit here. Just tell me what you want.”
Her face grew red. “You can’t do that!”
“Of course I can. What would you like? Tell me.”
“I, um, really? You’re sure?”
“Baby, don’t know how many times I have to tell you that I don’t say anything I don’t mean.”
She let out a deep sigh, nodding. “If they have period panties, I like them. I don’t know if any of them were salvaged when my stuff was packed up. But that’s unlikely so just a packet of pads, please. The kind with wings.”
“You got it. Any brand?”
“Any brand is fine. Size six or eight in panties if they have them.”
“You got it.”
Devi couldn’t believe this was happening.
That he was buying her sanitary products. Nobody had ever done that for her. When she finally had some money, she’d invested in period panties. It meant that she didn’t have to buy stuff each month and she preferred them. Some of them might be in her bags of things that Kent had salvaged, but she didn’t think they had time to go through it.