Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 69807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69807 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
I found Maureen there, waiting impatiently.
She was waiting for me, I knew.
“Did you let my mother into my apartment?” I asked.
Because that was the thing.
She had to have been let in.
I know my lock was a standard issue apartment lock, but my landlord, my sister, and I were the only ones with a key.
Maureen’s cheeks reddened. “She said that she had bones for your dogs.”
“She gave them bones all right,” I grumbled. “But I don’t have any dogs, so she just left those bones on the ground next to my door. What was it that I specifically told you when I moved in?”
She looked angry. “She’s your mother.”
“She’s a goddamn con woman that steals my rent every time she comes into the apartment!” I cried out. “I told you that for a reason! Now I can’t pay rent because you allowed someone to break into my home.”
Maureen’s eyes narrowed. “You still owe rent.”
“I’ll pay rent,” I said. “But only when I get it back from my mother.”
“That’ll be today?” she asked. “If you don’t pay by the end of the day, you’ll be evicted.”
“You won’t evict me,” I challenged. “Want to know why?”
The older woman narrowed her eyes and said, “Why?”
“Because I’ll beat the shit out of you if you do.” I turned toward the door but stopped in the doorway and looked back over my shoulder. “I don’t like you. I know you don’t like me. But we both know that you need my money. I pay in cash, and you pocket it without paying taxes. I don’t care what you do with the money after I give it to you. But if you ever let my mother back into my apartment again, I’m going to do something you won’t like.”
Maureen crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t have to let you live here.”
“And I can turn you into the city of Dallas for these living conditions, your tax evasion, and that pot business you have going on up in the top floors. But I won’t.” I turned and left, knowing she wouldn’t kick me out.
Hell, I could probably live there for free if I wanted, but I paid my way.
No matter what.
Two
May everything I say confuse you until you learn to mind your own business.
—Chevy to Cutter
CHEVY
I was still laughing the next day at the way her shoe came off and she took off after it.
Aella Cowan, better known as Whirlwind in my head.
A smile was on my face when I pulled up to the hospital and shut my bike off.
I usually tried to park far away to get some steps in before my shift.
I’d be spending the next twelve hours on my ass next to a patient, and I seriously questioned my life choices sometimes.
I hated being so sedentary.
In fact, when I’d first decided that anesthesia was my path, I’d done so when I was in the military and working in battle zones that was non-stop, constant action.
Now, when I was working for a living as a civilian, I sort of hated how boring it was.
Parking my motorcycle across the street from Whirlwind’s red Ford Mustang, I studied it for long moments.
The front bumper looked like a good pothole would take it at any second.
The tires were so damn bald that a good rain would probably make her car go into a tailspin.
Oh, and her windows were tinted, but only fifty percent. The tint was peeling off in multiple places, and looked like she’d just be better off peeling it completely.
The hood was more gray than red due to the paint peeling off, and the left front headlight looked like she’d been backed into recently.
Shaking my head, I tucked my helmet under my arm and started walking toward the hospital.
It was hot as hell out today, and it was only six-fifteen in the morning.
I was sure by the time that I got out for lunch, it’d be so hot that a little more of the paint would be peeling from Whirlwind’s hood.
Whirlwind.
God, she was something.
I watched her constantly, and she had no clue.
She was always lost in her own little world, working her perfect ass off as she existed there.
If she only opened her eyes and looked my way more than once, she’d see me.
I was so lost in thought that when my phone rang, I jumped.
“Fuck,” I said as I reached into my pocket and pulled the offending device free.
I narrowed my eyes at the screen, then answered it reluctantly.
“Hey, Reign.”
It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to her, but I just didn’t think that I could handle giving her gentle today.
I liked Reign.
She was a nice girl, but she wasn’t “my” girl.
From the time that I was in high school on, she’d always been Copper’s girl.
Even when he’d gone to prison, she was Copper’s girl.