Total pages in book: 180
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
That’s what it’s like. Stormy nights and misty mornings, and maybe I won’t be alone for all of them.
His eyebrows nosedive, his voice sounding curt, and I almost snort. That was definitely the wrong thing to say.
“What does that mean?” he asks.
I lift up the pack and slide my arms in, strapping it to my back. “See you in a couple days,” I reply, keeping my secrets to myself that I seem to have trouble containing.
Leaving him in my room, I exit the house, climb on my bike, and start pedaling for home as thunder cracks across the sky.
The air grows thick, the clouds bearing down, and the wind whips over my body.
There are a million reasons that I’m scared about buying a house I can barely afford in an area where I’m not sure I’m safe, but it’s like every minute that takes me deeper into this mistake, the better I feel about myself. I’ve never done anything on my own, except the bakery. I don’t have my own friends. I don’t travel without my family. I don’t have a past. Hell, Dylan has more of a past than I do.
My parents will have every right to be concerned, but I’m starting to understand that it’s okay. My brothers can fight and yell as much as they want. In the end, though, I’m an adult.
And I can’t believe I just left Lucas—again—when we could be in my parents’ house alone together. If it were the Lucas from eight or ten years ago, I would’ve stayed. He’s changed.
The only part that’s an immediate concern is the car situation.
I’m miles away now, Uber doesn’t come to Weston, and it’s not a good look to still bum rides off family if I’m trying to maintain that I’m an independent adult. It’s time to invest in a company vehicle.
I roll my shoulders, the weight of the pack getting heavier every mile as I cross the bridge. I pat my leg, but I think I stuffed my purse in the backpack, and I don’t have any spare change in my pocket.
I grunt, breezing by the sunken car far underneath me. “I’ll get you next time,” I mutter.
Riding through the warehouse district, I look up at empty windows, darkened doorways, and abandoned alleys, but I feel the eyes all the same. As if the ghosts never ran from the flood.
There are still people residing in Weston. Enough to keep the schools running. It was the poorer neighborhoods that proved the most resilient.
The river flows from a higher elevation, and Knock Hill—the more affluent area that looks like it’s modeled after the Upper West Side of New York City—took the hardest hit. The streets were consumed, businesses ruined, and most of those who evacuated never came back. Thankfully, the main living areas of the brownstones—which are more black than brown now—were salvaged, only the basement levels really flooding.
I cruise up to my house, taking the sidewalk, because cars block both ends of the street. Tables line the curbs on both sides as Farrow stacks cinderblocks, placing a grate on top. It takes me a moment to figure out what he’s doing, but it looks like a homemade barbecue pit.
“What are you up to?” I call out to him as I park my bike.
People surround him—some men I haven’t met, and a few familiar-looking faces among the girls. Friends of Dylan’s.
He jogs over. “Block party. You coming?”
Tonight?
I climb my steps. “Why not wait till the Fourth?”
“Because we’re crashing the Falls on the Fourth.”
I throw him a look, shimmying out of my backpack and digging my house key out of my pocket. “You mess up my brother’s celebration, we can’t be friends.”
I don’t care how much we might get along. Madoc works too hard.
I start to move through the door, but Farrow comes up to my right and leans into my ear, stopping me. “Behind me, on the window frame, is a camera,” he says in a low voice.
I lift my eyes, seeing just past him. A small lens is posted on the exterior of one of my living room windows.
Was that there when I bought the place?
“Two more on the side of the house,” he continues, “and one at the rear. Morrow installed them while you were at work this morning.”
Lucas?
I dart my gaze between Farrow and the camera and back again. He put cameras outside my house this morning while I was at work?
“They’ll feed to a device, probably his phone,” Farrow tells me.
That dick! He said he helped Fallon at her workshop, took some work calls… Conveniently left out that he installed security on my house, footage for which I have no access!
I grit my teeth. “Thanks.”
He gives me a nod and goes back to his crew. I head inside, locking the door.
I drop my bag on the floor, ready to tear every camera off my damn house. Did my brothers tell him to put them up? Are they watching me too?