Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68583 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 229(@300wpm)
It didn’t make Webber jump, though.
Instead, his head turned and he glared hard at the elevator like it’d personally slighted him.
It was only when Silver stepped out that I understood his near instant reaction, and I nearly choked.
Silver stepped out of the elevator with a huge box of something in her arms.
She smiled wide when she saw us standing there, then her eyes went huge as saucers when she said, “Oh. My. God. Look how cute!”
I jerked my head for her to come inside and said, “Come in. Whatcha got there?”
Silver brought by food from my brother’s at least once a week.
She lived just down the road from me now and had dinner with her twin sister multiple times a week. But on Thursdays, when both of them had the day off, Aella and Silver would spend the day planning an elaborate meal and then eat it with only themselves.
There were always leftovers, and I never complained when I got them.
Apparently, Silver and Aella thought that I couldn’t feed myself, because I was always the only one to get the leftovers.
Not even Cutter or Chevy got them.
“Today it was butter chicken, naan, and rice,” she said. “Not as elaborate as we usually do it, but we ran out of time because we were binging Grey’s Anatomy, and what the fuck did they have to kill off Derek for? I’m going to choose to believe that he didn’t die. Fuckin’ Shondra.”
“Who’s Shondra?” Webber reluctantly asked.
“Shondra is the writer of Grey’s Anatomy.” Silver smiled at him. “Hi, Webber. Is that your baby?”
The way she said it, though it sounded upbeat and happy, sounded slightly off.
Her smile looked a little bit forced, too.
“Not mine,” Webber grumbled. “A friend’s.”
“And whose baby are you holding, Copper?”
I jerked my head toward the balcony and said, “A friend’s grandkid. His daughter is having issues right now with postpartum depression, and she’s crashing here until he can get home.”
“That’s sweet of you,” she whispered as she walked first to the kid in my arms, then the one in Webber’s. “Please tell me that I can hold these babies.”
I gave her Holt without thought, trusting her implicitly.
“Ohh, you’re just precious.”
“You wouldn’t have thought that ten minutes ago when he was screaming bloody murder,” Webber mumbled.
Since I was child free I said, “Y’all give me a few minutes. I want to go check on her.”
Silver agreed excitedly, and I heard Webber grumble something underneath his breath while I was moving out onto the balcony with the door already closing behind me.
The sobs were the first thing I heard over the howling wind—being this high there was always wind.
Even now, all these months after moving in, the look down was still disorienting.
“Baker,” I murmured loud enough to be heard over the wind and her cries, but not too loud to be overwhelming.
She didn’t move the sheet from over her head, but she did pause in her crying.
Which was both a relief and a gut punch.
She didn’t want anyone to hear her cry.
Fuck.
“So I have this neighbor…”
I expected her to be outraged that I’d just let her kid go to some random woman I only knew through my sister. There was none. Only, “Is he done crying?”
“He’s finished crying for now,” I said as I explained what the chiropractor told me. “And then she said that I could bring Holt back any time.”
“You should definitely take him over there whenever you feel like it,” she mumbled.
Her ambivalence to what I did to her kid both concerned and relieved me.
She had to have some maternal care deep inside or her kid wouldn’t be prospering as he was, despite his crying. So that meant on some level, she trusted me with her kid.
Me, an ex-con who murdered someone.
Not to mention, there was no way in hell her father hadn’t shared about me.
She wouldn’t have been comfortable coming over here if she hadn’t known at least something about me.
And “oh, I shared a prison cell with him. We both served fifteen years for murder,” wouldn’t have been something that he left out of a conversation.
Especially not since Shad had gone down for the same reason I had—beating a man to death with his bare hands.
Though, Shad had beaten his man to death with his bare hands because he’d shot his dog and not caught his father doing inconceivable things to his sister.
“There’s food inside,” I said. “Would you like me to bring you some?”
There was a watery, red eye that popped out from underneath the white sheet, and then a resounding, “No.”
I ignored her and stood up, heading back inside.
Webber was already eating some of my food.
Since there would be plenty, I didn’t say anything, only loaded up a plate of food and took it outside after making sure Silver was okay with Holt.
When I got back outside, I took a bite of the butter chicken and groaned. “Damn, they outdid themselves this time.”