Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 66977 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66977 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 335(@200wpm)___ 268(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
For longer than I care for, the entire room is silent.
No one moves a muscle.
I’m not even sure a breath is taken.
It isn’t until I watch Slater swallow what I can only imagine is the last of his reluctance that I realize what’s coming next. “Okay.” His arms abandon their posts around me to assist in transitioning him to a mission prepared stance. “Tell us what you need.”
Chapter 10
Slater
**
I tuck my hands between my legs and try not to cry.
I’m not supposed to cry.
I’m a bad boy when I cry because big boys aren’t supposed to cry.
Five is too big to cry.
I get hit in the head when I cry.
And that makes me cry more.
And then he yells.
And then I cry more.
And then she says shh, and he hits her, and she cries.
He never cries.
He just makes us cry.
More bad things happen in my body making me bounce in place. “I gotta potty…”
“Hush, boy!” shouts the man from the couch. “I’m tryin’ to watch the goddamn game over here!”
Tears begin to fill my eyes, and I breathe faster.
I can’t slow it down.
I gotta go.
I gotta really, really go.
Letting my head hit the corner of the walls I’ve been looking at forever, I try not to breathe too loud.
Or cry where he can hear.
I don’t wanna pee on myself.
Not again.
That makes him so mad and then he yells so much and then I don’t get food.
And I need food.
I don’t like the wiggly meat, but I’m so hungry.
I’m always hungry.
My real mommy and daddy never let me be hungry.
Ever.
I miss my real mommy and daddy.
I miss my big boy bed.
I miss my name.
I miss hugs and kisses.
I miss I love you.
They don’t love me.
They don’t want me.
Not really.
No one wants me.
What if no one ever wants me again?
**
Unexpected pressure is applied against my ribcage forcing my left hand to fly over and clamp down at the same time my eyes fly open to come face to face with my assailant.
“Okay, GI Joe with Kung Fu Grip,” Arley playfully sasses, “if you don’t want my help with laundry, I will happily go back to watching Baking Impossible and daydreaming about the rock concert themed cake I’m pretty sure I could build after a good trip to the pastry surplus shop.”
Not smiling isn’t even a thought to entertain. “When you say rock concert, you’re talkin’ more Weezer than Smashing Pumpkins, aren’t ya?”
“They can perform at the same venues.”
Light laughter bounces back and forth before I return the towel she had taken back into my possession. “You shouldn’t be worried about laundry, Angel Cake.” Adjusting my ass on the hardwood floor beside the couch where she’s been working is absentmindedly done. “I got this.”
“But I can help get that.”
“You don’t need to be helpin’.” The folding process begins again. “You need to be finishin’.”
“And you need to be sleeping.”
“I’ll sleep when you sleep.” I cut her a guilty glance. “I shouldn’t have been sleepin’ now. That goes against protocol.”
“Pretty sure everything that happens in this penthouse goes ‘against protocol’.” Her attempt at lightening the situation is accompanied by an eyebrow wiggle.
She’s not entirely wrong.
Sleeping with the client is prohibited.
But shit happens.
Two people constantly in close quarters often can or does lead to that rule being bent or broken.
One more reason I prefer R&R assignments.
That’s not an issue or complication that comes up.
And while fucking the target is off limits, falling asleep when you’re supposed to be protecting the client is unacceptable.
Period.
Full. Fucking. Stop.
Especially when that client happens to be the one person in your life you know you can’t live without.
“It’s okay you took a cowboy nap,” my girlfriend sweetly insists, fingertip reaching over to lovingly stroke the nape of my neck. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Don’t you mean a catnap?”
“No. A cowboy nap.”
“What the fuck is a cowboy nap?”
“You know in old movies where they’re like sitting in a rocking chair, and they tip their hat real low to block their face and then drift off to sleep until some broad comes running over needing help or herpes or something.”
Yet again loud, body shaking laughter floods the room.
Lord have mercy, I’ve missed this.
Her.
She’s been so engulfed in combing through the accountant’s data that she’s barely said anything to me outside of expressing gratitude for food, liquids, and reminding her to take a piss. Being nearby just in case I’m needed – however, I can’t actually be of any help because I can’t calculate complicated equations or clump together behavior patterns that might be of some use – is isolating as fuck.
It’s fucked up that this is the closest we’ve ever been together but simultaneously the furthest. We’re somehow in the same room yet millions of miles apart. She’s constantly in her own head, swept away in the sounds of music or baking or clicking of a pen while I’m left to gaze from afar. Get lost in the melancholy notes because they make me feel like she’s next to me versus on the other side of the room bouncing around laptops and tablets and notepads and mixing bowls needing me to keep my distance, so she has room to work.