Total pages in book: 152
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147545 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 738(@200wpm)___ 590(@250wpm)___ 492(@300wpm)
“They weren’t happy.”
I imagine that’s putting things lightly.
Sliding a glance my way, he says, “Apparently, it’s disloyal to hook up with the enemy.”
I nod. “That seems right.”
“Nothing I can’t handle, though. Nothing for you to trouble yourself with.” He doesn’t give me a chance to respond before adding, “If we want this alibi to hold up, we should probably make a point to get together every now and then.”
My eyes widen. “Get together?”
He smirks. “I don’t mean sex. I mean, we can have sex if you want to,” he offers magnanimously.
“Wow, that’s generous of you.”
“I know.” He nods. “But they don’t get a subscription to keep swabbing us, so we can do whatever we want. I just think it would look suspicious if we stopped now, especially considering they don’t really have any evidence we ever hooked up before. It looks more believable if we keep seeing each other.”
“That makes sense to me.”
He nods toward the glove compartment. “Pop that open.”
I frown, my gaze shifting warily to the small compartment. “Why?”
“Just do it.”
I scrunch up my nose but reach for the latch to release it anyway.
The compartment pops open, and a small, rectangular white box falls into my hands. I turn it and see a picture of a cell phone on the front of the box.
“You probably won’t get yours back for a while,” he says. “Thought you’d need a replacement.”
“Oh, wow.” I look over at him. “You didn’t have to get me a phone.”
“I know our story is that we’ve been hooking up in person, and we weren’t communicating with our phones, but I think it makes sense for that to change now given what happened last night. No way our thing could have stayed a secret after that. I already created a contact for myself in your new phone. We’ll start texting, but we need to keep in mind that those texts could still be pulled if they continue to look at you as a suspect. I have every intention of continuing to protect you, Cassie, but you need to let me. You need to stay close to me. You need to tell me everything.”
I nod my understanding.
“I need to know more about Russell’s involvement,” he says. “Have you talked to him since last night?”
I shake my head. “We haven’t spoken. I don’t have my phone, so I don’t know if he’s texted me.”
“Do you think he would have?”
“Depends on if he’s heard the news. If so, probably, yeah.”
“We need to shut off service to your phone so new messages stop coming in. I set you up with a new account on that phone, so you’ll have to start fresh and re-save your contacts.”
“I can call the phone company today,” I say.
“Good. And you don’t think he had any idea what you were planning when he gave you his gun?”
“He didn’t seem suspicious. I don’t think most people who know me would ever suspect I would do something like that.”
He nods thoughtfully. “How close are you?”
I don’t know why this line of questioning makes me uncomfortable. “We’re friends, but not super close.”
“Whose idea was it to stay friends after you broke up?”
“Do I need my lawyer for this?” I ask lightly, but mostly as a cover for my real feelings of discomfort.
The corners of his mouth tug up slightly. “Won’t do you any good—I’m not the law.”
“I guess it was his idea. I wasn’t really in a place to… look after relationships, but I think he hoped I would snap out of it and…”
“Come back to him.”
My face feels hot as I nod.
“Why’d you break up with him?”
I hesitate. “It’s a long story.”
“I’ve got time.”
“There wasn’t just one single reason. It was hard for our relationship to continue after…” I glance toward him, but can’t make eye contact. “I wasn’t emotionally available after what happened. I tried for a little while, but it didn’t work. I resented his expectation for things to go back to how they were before, and I physically couldn’t handle a single bit of pressure.”
“Did he pressure you?”
“Before he did. After that night, he cooled it, but…” I shake my head, really not wanting to think about this. “One night we went to a party with his friends. The first one I could bring myself to go to after… And he was drinking, which wasn’t anything unusual. But I wasn’t. And I was already struggling with feeling uneasy and out of place there, then I went out on the back porch to get him. When I came around the corner, I could hear him and his friends joking around, ribbing each other. And one of them made some disgusting ‘joke’ about how Tim Walters got inside his girlfriend before he could. And my heart dropped. I stopped dead in my tracks. I expected him to get pissed, to defend me, but all he said was, ‘Don’t be a fucking dick.’ Maybe I interpreted it wrong, or maybe… my expectations weren’t fair. I don’t know. But I felt like he was saying that for his own ego, not for me. Like the guy was being a dick for pointing out he hadn’t slept with me yet, but some other guy... got there first. He didn’t sound outraged that someone would make that awful joke about what happened to me. He sounded annoyed, like he would with any ribbing comment, and I just felt myself lose all my feelings for him at that moment. It was like someone poked a hole in me and it all just leaked right out.”