Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Though, I kinda wanted Gabe to see it, just to, you know, test the waters there.
Luna went to answer the door, and I was right. Javi filled it.
Luna tried to play it cool. “Hey, big man. Want a beer?”
Javi’s gaze went to me, the laptop, me again, then Luna. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, nothing,” she said breezily.
“We thought we’d change into our bathing suits and take a dip,” Willow lied.
“Maybe we could get an Oasis Sunday night barbeque going?” Shanti suggested.
“Okay, no.” I stood.
Luna knew what I was thinking and surprisingly didn’t hesitate to get out of the way.
Javi entered.
Luna closed the door.
I took a big breath and laid it out. “Enough with the competition. This has been real for a while but now we know how real it is, and sure, Trev is now very out of commission. But we have to figure this stuff out.” I pointed to the laptop. “We have to find out who those girls are. We have to find out who killed Trev. And we have to find a way to contact those girls and tell them they’re off the hook. Tell them the videos have been deleted forevermore. And tell them they’re free.”
“What girls?” Javi asked, and although his tone was sexy low, it was freakishly scary low too.
“I’m not going to show you because you might lose your mind,” I replied.
“What girls?” Javi repeated.
“Again, I’m not going to show you. I’m just going to say, there are a lot,” I told him.
“Harlow.”
“Javi.”
“Harlow.”
“Javi.”
He came my way, got toe to toe with me and only tipped his chin down to look at me so he was towering over me when he said, “Baby, not gonna ask again. What girls?”
“Just show him,” Luna sighed.
Bah!
I reached around him, opened the laptop and jiggled my finger on the touchpad.
This time, Luna’s password page came up. She bent down to show the screen her face, and then the folder appeared.
Javi’s breath whistled, he sucked it in so fast when he saw the video file icons.
“I take it Kev didn’t share what a massive racket this shit was,” Willow stated angrily.
“No,” Javi said slowly, his attention glued to the laptop screen. “He did not.”
Oh boy.
“We have Arthur running facial recognition on the files,” Shanti informed him.
“Good,” Javi grunted at the screen and looked at her. “I’m out on the barbeque.”
Oh boy!
He turned to me. “Gotta go to the office.” He then turned to Luna. “You’ll get an email of where to copy that shit so we can get Brody’s assistance with tracking down those women.”
Luna nodded.
Javi again looked at the screen.
He did this so long, expressions chasing themselves over his face that shared explicitly he wished he was the one who slit Trev’s throat, so I reached out and caught his jaw in my hand to turn his face my way.
“Honey,” I said.
“That motherfucker,” he said.
“You got that right,” Willow said.
“You do a barbeque, save me some food,” Javi ordered.
I nodded.
He kissed me quickly.
Then he prowled out.
“I’m with you, Lolo,” Willow declared. “The sooner we find out who killed Kev, and the sooner we can tell those women they don’t have to live in fear of their life crashing down around them, the better. I don’t care who wins this anymore. I just want it done.”
I just wanted it done too.
Especially for all those ladies.
What an ordeal.
“Agreed, and Luna, you gotta agree too. I’m so over this shit, it isn’t funny,” Shanti said.
“Oh, I agree,” Luna replied. “We can race the guys on another case. This one needs to be in our rearview. I’m just trying to decide if we should do hamburgers or hotdogs for the spur-of-the-moment Sunday Evening Oasis barbeque.”
“Both,” I said.
“I want barbeque chicken,” Willow said.
Oh yeah.
Barbeque chicken sounded yummy.
“All,” I amended.
“Set up an Instacart, bitch, I’m activating the Oasis phone tree,” Luna replied, while moving to her phone.
I pulled up Word on her computer, instead of Instacart, because I couldn’t do buying groceries without a grocery list.
Willow helped me.
Shanti got on the phone to do her phone tree bit.
And as it went at the Oasis, within fifteen minutes, we had the makings of a party.
TWENTY-SEVEN
“BAD REPUTATION”
(JOAN JETT)
The next morning, while Javi and I were repeatedly bumping into each other in my tiny kitchen while he handled coffee and I made our smoothies (my famous Creamsicle one! Javi’s second favorite), I decided I liked his kitchen better.
It was a whole lot bigger. Plenty of room for Javi’s big, tall body along with mine to move around and do our thing without getting in each other’s way.
I was going to the fridge to put away the almond milk and yogurt, he was coming from the fridge with the creamer, when we slammed into each other, front to front.
Fortunately, this didn’t cause us to be covered in milk and yogurt.