Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 98412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98412 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
We were sitting around the table discussing anything and everything that happened lately when my phone chimed in my pocket. If I’d thought about it, I would have silenced the stupid thing.
When the phone beeped, my mom’s head shot up like a bloodhound’s.
“No phones at the table,” Ani griped, stuffing food into her mouth. Damn, that woman needed to get some sleep. She’d come in trying to hide it, but the longer she sat there, the more convinced I was that at any moment she was going to face-plant into her mashed potatoes.
“Is it her?” my mom asked as I cut up the meat on my plate. “Trevor, is that her?”
“I don’t know,” I said calmly. “I’m eating.” I lifted my fork and knife like they were evidence.
“Well, check it,” she said, annoyed.
I knew she was anxious and waiting for news, but it still drove me crazy that I was fishing my phone out of my pocket in the middle of dinner so that I could tell my mom who was contacting me. I kind of hoped it was someone from work, but I knew it wasn’t. Those guys might text me later in the night to invite me out with them, but they wouldn’t text the boss—me—right after work on Friday.
Hey, Trevor. Sorry, I haven’t texted back, I’ve been crazy busy. Yeah, you guys can visit, but we’re actually moving, so it’ll have to wait a bit.
Moving? Where the hell were they going, and why? The thought made my stomach churn. I knew where they were now. I knew how to find them. If Morgan moved and changed her number, they could pretty much disappear. Was that what she was doing? Son of a bitch. I glanced at my mom and stood up from the table.
“She said you could visit,” I said, giving my mom a small smile as she clapped her hands together once in happiness. “I’ll be right back.”
I strode outside and hit Morgan’s contact before the door had even shut behind me.
“Hello?” she answered. I was a little surprised.
“You’re moving?” I asked.
“Nice greeting,” she said drily. “Yes, we’re moving.”
“Why?”
She sighed and I snapped my mouth shut, swallowing against the need to interrogate her. I was being kind of an ass. A nosy ass.
“Not that it’s any of your business,” she said, not unkindly, “But I lost my franking job, so we’re headed up to stay with my dad in Sacramento for a while.”
“You lost your job?”
“It’s like I’m talking to a parrot.”
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled, shaking my head. “That sucks, what happened?”
“I took the job under the conditions that I’d pitch in if someone else didn’t show up,” she said, sounding frustrated. “Which was fine, because no one ever really did that. Pretty much everyone in the shop needed the money, so we always showed up for our shifts. But then the owner hired his franking cousin or something, who never showed up, and they had to keep asking me to come in.”
She went silent.
“And you can’t just drop everything and go in,” I said in understanding. Those motherfuckers.
“I make it a point not to drop my kid,” she joked miserably. “I took some of the shifts, but Carmen’s got a life, too, and she couldn’t watch Etta every time they called.”
“They fired you for that?” I asked, assuming that Carmen was her babysitter.
“Well, they hemmed and hawed, but yeah. Which is crazy. Now they’re down a piercer and that cousin is still working there and never showing up for his shifts. Someone needs to go to franking business school. Idiots.”
“Idiots!” Etta yelled in the background.
“Etta, don’t say ‘idiots,’” Morgan replied.
“Idiots!”
“This is what my life looks like right now,” Morgan said into the phone while Etta sang the word over and over. “No joke, this is my life.”
“Shit, that sucks.” I leaned against the railing of the porch as Morgan sighed into the phone. The people she was working for must have had their heads up their asses.
“It is what it is. Not the end of the world, you know? But damn, it’s frustrating. All my clientele are down here, and I’m going to have to start from scratch in Sacramento.”
“You’re staying with your dad, huh?” I tried to sound nonchalant, but it was hard not to completely interrogate her.
“Yeah. He’s totally stoked that we’re moving in with him. Me? Not so much.” She laughed a little, but the noise was forced.
“You have a rainy day fund,” I reminded her quietly. “If you really don’t want to move—”
“No,” she cut me off. “That’s for emergencies and hopefully I won’t ever have to use it and Etta can have it for college.”
“Morgan, that’s for life,” I argued. “That’s for when you need it.”
“But I don’t need it,” she said. “Not right now. I have enough cash to move us and get settled. This isn’t an emergency. It’s just a franking speed bump.”