Total pages in book: 168
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164910 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 825(@200wpm)___ 660(@250wpm)___ 550(@300wpm)
How would it have hurt Olivia? I don’t want to be a shadow over someone the rest of their life.
“Yes,” I say again.
She regards me as if she’s trying to decide if I’m telling the truth or not, but then she blinks as she nods.
“You’re in the right place,” she assures me. “Those men in there weren’t always men, you know?”
Is she implying I still need a male role model? I hide my smile.
I guess it wouldn’t hurt.
She inches up to me, her tone clear and steady. “Are you going to make us stronger or weaker?”
My shoulders seem to square of their own accord as I look down at her. “Stronger.”
“Do you love my brother?”
My heart swims, and I can only whisper, “Yeah.”
I don’t know if it’s the prospect of being included in a real family or I just love him and will do anything to be here, but I want to be good for them.
“Let’s eat,” she says.
She starts back for the house, and I follow.
“And I think you would’ve stopped it,” she tells me over her shoulder. “I was more angry than afraid that night. I’m not sure if I ever really believed you were going to let it happen.”
She opens the door and looks at me. I remember her fighting. Man, she pissed Milo off.
She walks in. “You would’ve stopped it.”
I hope so, but it’ll haunt me. The only thing to do now is to prove I’d never let it happen from here on out. I’ll stand in front of her if I have to.
“And Mad Rock distribution called me,” she says as we head back to the table. “They want to see some dailies. Do I have you to thank?”
“Your family says thank you?”
She laughs. Like actually throws her head back, her brothers watching with borderline disdain that I made her smile.
Still, though. They hand me a plate.
* * *
—
After breakfast, Dallas and I shower, interrupted after about an hour to “get our asses downstairs.” I realize it was pointless to bathe, because we’re dirty again.
I should get back to St. Carmen, deal with my car, pack up some of my and Anna-Katherine’s things, book an Airbnb until I can figure out how to get my father out of the house, get online and check my accounts, stocks, and emails, talk to Grady, meet with the Ministry…
I end up spending all morning helping clean up the Bay after the storm.
Just as well. I need more time to figure out how to handle Jerome, Vincent, and the other boosters, not to mention potential business partners. I don’t think my sexual orientation will be an issue to them so long as I continue to prove myself lucrative, but if not, all I can tell them is to fuck off. No one gets between Dallas Jaeger and me.
Walking into Mariette’s, I see tables packed with families eating in between bouts of tidying the streets and yards of fallen branches and palms, as well as getting electricity flowing to the homes in the swamps, finding lost boats, repairing shutters and shingles, and hosing off mud. A chainsaw whirs in the distance, a downed tree probably blocking a road.
Servers slip around tables, setting down plates with hamburgers and dumping piles of seafood onto newspaper. Guests get up and refill their soft drinks at will. Is Mariette not charging today?
Nothing like this happens in St. Carmen. Workers come in and clean up for us, sometimes overnight, and you almost didn’t know there was a storm.
We definitely don’t help our neighbors.
Surveying the area, I can’t find Anna-Katherine. Aracely said she was here. Then I find her, through the kitchen window.
Slipping behind the counter, I walk through the door, hearing her exclaim.
“I’m learning how to make tarts!” she bursts out, stirring a large bowl of key lime custard. “Like in Alice in Wonderland!”
She’s not looking at me. Who’s she talking to?
“That’s great,” I hear her mom say. “Save me some!”
I glance down, seeing my sister’s phone on speaker.
“I will.”
Well, that’s one phone call I don’t have to make, I guess. Good. I didn’t want to relay to her that my father came home early, which means she didn’t go with him to Colorado or stay long if she did. Otherwise, she would’ve known he’d left.
Mariette works alongside Anna-Katherine, other cooks around the kitchen frying, boiling, and grilling.
“I’ve rented a house in St. Augustine,” Ava tells her. “There’s a big kitchen if you want to cook.”
Anna-Katherine’s worried eyes flash to mine. “No,” she whimpers. “I want to stay here.”
She pleads with a look, but she doesn’t have the heart to tell her mom she’d prefer to be here.
I take the phone off speaker and lift it to my ear.
“Ava,” I say, turning away and letting my sister get back to her tarts.
“Callum.” She sounds alarmed. “What’s happening?”