Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 176002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 880(@200wpm)___ 704(@250wpm)___ 587(@300wpm)
You should have seen your tits bounce. So fucking cheap, you know that?
Josh doesn’t respond, just keeps on pacing.
We’re going to have to walk right past them to get to my door. Right up close. I feel really fucking sick as curtains twitch around us, their yelling garnering attention.
Because I’m Ella here. I’ve always been Ella here, not Holly. This is home. Or it has been.
“We can come back, honestly,” I say again, my eyes flitting around the people appearing in windows, but Josh is having none of it, just keeps on walking.
He steps out in front of me when we reach my garden and the assholes beside it. God, they look so fucking smug.
But Josh looks so fucking angry.
“You three pricks better get the fuck out of here, right now, or you’ll regret it.”
He squares right up to the guy in the middle of the trio, and puts his hands on his handlebars.
Fuck. FUCK.
I scrabble for my keys from my handbag, fingers trembling.
“I mean it, dipshits,” Josh says. “Get the fuck out of here.”
His voice is even, unfazed. His tone is aggressive, but so steady.
So fucking confident.
I stop scrabbling in my handbag and look on, dumbfounded. I step closer, my eyes on Josh and not the assholes in front of him. There is something about his confidence that gives me butterflies as I watch him, standing eye to eye with the ringleader. He doesn’t even break a sweat up close. No sign of weakness whatsoever.
He’s so much bigger than them. Taller. Imposing.
Magnificent.
The guy tries to tug his bike away, but Josh doesn’t let him. He holds the bike firm. And as for the others, they don’t move, just stare on as mute as I am.
“You her fucking pimp or something?” handlebar guy says, but his voice is less cocksure now. It’s empty bravado. “Should have given you the coins, not her.”
In one of his signature snakelike moves, Josh’s hand snaps up around the guy’s throat, crushing hard. The guy paws at his windpipe, flailing, but Josh doesn’t let go.
“No, I’m not her pimp, you pathetic little cunt. I’m her fucking boyfriend.”
Holy fuck, how the guy on his bike topples as Josh launches him sideways, his bike crashing right on top of him. It makes the one to the right of him fall like a domino – two of the three guys ending up in a clanking mess on the floor. As for the third, he doesn’t even wait for his friends to get back up from the tangle they’re in, just spins on his wheels and pedals the hell away from here. Wimp.
Josh stands tall and watches the other two squirming under their bike frames, and I watch him in amazement, replaying his words in my mind.
I’m her fucking boyfriend.
Yes. He is.
He’s also an entertainer, just like I am, and he’s so real with it. So easy with it. My emotions spike as the fear disappears. My embarrassment shrivels and dies, because I’m proud of him being him. I’m proud of us.
And I’m proud of me, too. Embarrassment can go fuck itself.
I feel a flame of fire as I look down at the two jackasses on the floor. The stupid pricks who insulted me.
I’m not sweet little Ella who lives here anymore, keeping my head down, ashamed of myself from the day I moved in, and dreading any passing whispers.
I’m Holly now, too.
And Holly won’t take any shit from sad little tossers like them.
I step up beside my boyfriend, glad I’m still in my glorious display of my ballgown from last night’s dinner date.
“You two are a pair of vile losers, you know that? And you know what else? Seeing me in front of a window is the closest you’ll ever get to getting a piece of me, because you’d never be able to afford me in a million years.”
I put my heel up on one of their bike wheels.
“Being a whore doesn’t make me cheap, boys, it makes me the opposite, actually. So, fuck off back to your own part of shitville and leave me the fuck alone.” I twist a little, so they can see my thigh through the split in my dress. “And make the most of this view, because it won’t be around here much longer. My slutty cunt has risen me like a phoenix from the ashes of this hellhole. Shame your sorry little dicks won’t do the same for you.”
I lower my leg, and Josh boots his foot into the guy’s wheel. Christ, how the spokes clank. He’s likely buckled them.
“You heard her, shitheads. Get the fuck out of here, or you won’t have your sorry little dicks anymore. I’ll tear them off along with your bollocks.”
The idiots get to their feet, looking like dumbass college kids rather than hardcore yobs. They jump on their bikes and speed away as fast as they can. Good fucking riddance to them. I’m well aware that the twitching curtains around us are filling up with more neighbours, but I stand proud, uncaring.