Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 75891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75891 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 304(@250wpm)___ 253(@300wpm)
How far would our lives have been had we not had that one night that went so wrong back then? Would we already be married, like his brother and his wife? With two kids and making plans for a third?
My mind only wanders to places like this, daydreaming the way I once did with my head in the clouds. Even the shards of my old friend that he’d left scattered on the floor couldn’t get a rise out of me. The man was so jealous he’d killed a damn robot.
I’m pretty sure my sister had told him about Toby’s other functions to start trouble, though she claims she was making it easier for me to explain. No matter, I’ll just make another one to keep him on his toes. The thought made me grin as I imagined the six-foot metal contraption standing at attention in some corner, just waiting to be used whenever he gets on my nerves.
That’s the threat I’d used on him anyway, even though I had no intentions of ever doing such a ghastly thing. Poor Toby had been my sparring partner for almost ten years; he was my buddy who’d kept me sane on many days when there was no other outlet. Now he was gone at the hands of a madman.
I think Julius is just mad that Toby was there when he wasn’t. He seems to think the robot was competition, the jackass. I had just had that thought when he walked out of the bathroom, looking all hot in his towel, hair wet and eight-pack on full display.
It grinds my gears that this is all it takes to get me going. Just one look at his body, and I forget all my grievances. Such a cliched thing to do, especially since he hadn’t suffered nearly enough for what he’d done.
“Hey, coward!” What? Just because I’ve forgiven him doesn’t mean I’m going to make his life easy. He’s got a lot to make up for after all, and if I let up on him too soon, he just might get too big for his britches again.
JULIUS
There goes my little pain in the ass again. If I hadn’t just heard her with my own ears, I’d believe she was still holding on to anger from before. She throws that shit in my face every chance she gets, and I’ve long come to suspect that she was doing it on purpose; now I know that it’s true.
The little sneak pouts and looks hurt every time she loses an argument, and I usually just give in because I owe her, but now I’ve got her number. I just stood there, wrapped in a towel, watching her to see if there was any hint anywhere of her subterfuge, but she hides it well.
Her glares are enough to melt steel, and her tongue is as vicious as a wasp. She can conjure up anger at the drop of a hat just to keep me in line, and I usually just let her have her way because everyone else is on her side. But now I’ve got her number.
Does it really matter, though, whether I know that she’s using the past as a battering ram against me? Aren’t I already programmed to always give in to her? I’ve seen that shit with my father and brother enough to know how it works. I’m never going to win another argument as long as I live.
“Who were you talking to?”
“My lover!” She dragged out the last word. Even though I knew she was full of shit and had heard the whole conversation, hearing her call him that still pissed me off. She didn’t expect me to jump on her and wasn’t quick enough to stop me.
“Say that again. I dare you.” She wiggled her hips a little, feeling the hardness that was pressed down against her, and looked at me with defiance.
“You heard me the first time; why make me repeat myself?” She fought a laugh and won, but there were remnants of a smile on her amazingly beautiful face.
Sometimes it hits me out of nowhere just how absolutely gorgeous she is. My heart aches in a good way at my luck that she’s the one. A bundle of enigmas that makes no sense in one package. She looks innocent enough for everyone to buy her bullshit, but she’s mischievous enough to make me sleep with one eye open.
She’s the only partner who makes me sweat, and we’ve only just begun. I put up with her shit when I would’ve sent anyone else packing long ago. Why is that? Is it just the curse? No, somehow I don’t think so. That shit doesn’t stop me from having a brain.
Is it because I know I owe her for the way I acted back then? That’s not it either. It’s something more, something deeper, elemental. A part of me that belongs only to her, to us, and to the life we’d started to weave that excluded everyone else.