Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 88736 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 88736 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 444(@200wpm)___ 355(@250wpm)___ 296(@300wpm)
The list was endless. I needed to get my ass out of bed.
“You awake?” Jesse called softly, pushing the bedroom door open.
“Yeah,” I replied, leaning up on my elbow. “What time is it?”
“Eight,” they replied, coming over to sit on the edge of the bed. “Curt said he’ll drive me to get coffee. Is that cool with you?”
“Yeah,” I said, pushing myself up. “Give me a sec, and I’ll get dressed.”
“No.” They shook their head. “Finn is still out, so someone has to stay with him.”
“Oh.” I looked them over. They were wearing a Guns N’ Roses muscle shirt and a pair of baggy cargo shorts that we’d found at a garage sale and were at least two sizes too big and had to be held up with a canvas belt. Their braids were starting to get a little fuzzy around the edges, probably because they hadn’t been able to find their bonnet last night, so they’d thrown on a National Parks hat that sat at a jaunty angle. They’d already gotten ready to go. Asking me if I minded was a formality. “Sure, baby. Go ahead. Do you need cash?”
“I’ve got some.”
“You sure?”
“I have a ten,” they confirmed as they hopped to their feet. “Curt is gonna bring me to his cousin’s shop, and he said we’ll be back in, like, twenty.”
“You have your phone?”
“I got it,” they replied as they disappeared through the doorway.
They’d gone from threatening to murder the man to going with him for coffee, which was a bit of a head scratcher, but I wasn’t worried. Jesse was born with a built-in bullshit detector. If they hadn’t felt comfortable, they wouldn’t have asked to go.
I got up and took a quick shower, thankful that I’d packed a beach towel in my bag in case of emergencies and I didn’t need to go search through the boxes downstairs to find one. I’d learned early, especially on road trips, that it was the random shit you couldn’t think of a reason to bring that you ended up needing. Towels could be used as a blanket, cleaning up a spilled fast-food soda or a bathroom incident—though we hadn’t had one of those in a long time—covering a seat that was too hot from the sun, or, in my case, drying off after a shower in a bathroom that had absolutely nothing in it.
As soon as I was dressed, I braided my hair so it would stay out of my face and pulled out my makeup. I’d spent my entire adult life wearing the same thing—sunblock, black eyeliner, mascara, and ChapStick. It took me about two minutes to do and made me feel put together even when I didn’t have the time or inclination to spend much time getting ready. A couple of years ago, though, Jesse had been a bit obsessed with makeup tutorials on the internet, and that shit had rubbed off. They’d been so interested and insistent that I’d eventually agreed to branch out. I now owned eye shadow and blush, some shit that made my face look dewy, and a lip gloss that didn’t make my lips feel like I’d slathered them in maple syrup.
Today, though, was a black eyeliner day. I felt anxious and determined. I didn’t feel dewy.
As soon as I was done getting ready for the day, I went to check on Finn. Yesterday had been a long one, and I’d wondered how he would react. There were two options—he could’ve woken up at the ass crack of dawn because he was so excited to be in a new place with new people, or he could’ve crashed hard and slept in. He’d done the latter. When I opened his door, he was sprawled out on top of his sleeping bag, one hand flung over his head and the other over his face to block out the light shining through the window.
We really needed curtains or blinds. I added it to my mental list as I made my way downstairs.
I wasn’t sure how much time I had left before Curt and Jesse got back from their coffee run, but I figured I’d get started on unpacking some of our boxes while I waited. Dylan and Isla were sitting at the kitchen table, whispering, when I entered the room.
“Hey,” Dylan greeted, lifting his head.
“Hey,” I replied. I smiled at Isla, who smiled right back, if a little nervously.
I understood Curtis’s reaction the night before. They’d done something really stupid by bringing Isla to Oregon, but I couldn’t help but notice how adorable they were. You could tell by how she looked at him that Isla thought Dylan was the coolest, funniest, handsomest boy she’d ever seen. I couldn’t really blame her. He was the spitting image of his dad. Dylan, on the other hand, looked at Isla like she was something precious. His normal teenage-boy cool turned into something else entirely in his interactions with her. I hadn’t been around them much, but he seemed to bend to her.