Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
“And I can get a part-time job or something,” Jinx went on. “I don’t know what I could do that’s legit, but I’d find something so I can buy groceries and pay for my schooling, and he can stop being all ‘save my woman.’”
Another btw: after much discussion and drama, Noah and Jinx had settled on her providing groceries for their household, along with paying for their streaming services, until she’d landed whatever employment she was going to land, and then they’d renegotiate.
In other words, Noah had used their brief separation to get his shit tight when Jinx made her approach so she could be in his life in a way that she could live with when she finally got her head out of her ass about living with him.
So in case there were any doubts, yet another yeah.
He so totally loved the crap out of her.
“He’s not saving you, you idiot,” Genesis (another one of our working-girl crew) said. “He’s supporting you.” When Jinx screwed up her face, Genesis amended, “The good kind of support. You know, like helping you make your dreams come true. It’s not like he’s giving you your dream, you gotta do all the studying and earn your degree. It’s just that he’s helping you to pave the way.”
“Yeah,” Persia said. “I don’t know, because I didn’t get as lucky as you, but from what I’ve heard, that’s what partners do. I mean, you saved him from a boring life of golf and shit sex with brainless, gold-digging bimbos. Now, on the flipside, he’s gonna help you get a degree. Big whoop. It’s called evening things out.”
While Persia was talking, I caught Duane and Lotus exchanging a look.
Um.
Hang on.
What was that?
“It doesn’t make me comfortable,” Jinx retorted to Persia.
“Okay, pay your own tuition,” Divinity put in (yeah, another one of our sex worker posse). “Take a part-time job. Make going back to school after a decade harder than it needs to be. It’s your life.”
I knew Jinx saw her point when she shot her an acid look.
“I think you just fight so you can make up,” Harlow suggested.
Jinx gave up on the acid and sucked back some of her malt.
“She totally just fights so they can make up,” Jessie stated.
While they were all involved in their chat, I leaned to Shanti and whispered, “Did you see that between D and L?”
“You bet,” she whispered back. “I think something happened that night we did the Dex/Dimitri thing.”
Hmm.
“Whatever,” Jinx snapped. “Dios mio, I should never have told you bitches.”
These days, Jinx said that a lot.
But she also always told us bitches.
“Now she’s having a tantrum because she knows we’re right,” Skyla said.
“Okay, fuck, whatever,” Duane groused. “I’ll do the blue.”
Lotus beamed.
I picked up my burger and took a bite as cheeseburgers with the girls (and Duane) veered back to protocol.
And because I agreed on the blue.
Also because I knew Jinx would cave.
We’d learned.
Noah wanted something?
She’d kick up a fuss.
And then she’d be all in.
It was when cheeseburgers with the girls was over, and we were walking to our cars, that I felt something odd.
I looked through the cars in the parking lot to see Duane standing in the door of his junker Honda Accord.
He was looking at me, and it wasn’t creepy.
He then pounded his fist to his chest over his heart once.
With that, he quickly got in his car.
Okay, maybe he was a skeeve.
But yeah.
He was our skeeve.
And I hoped he and Lotus were a thing.
Because there were all sorts of dreams.
We just had to open our hearts so they could come true.
After cheeseburgers with the girls, I was using Gabe’s kitchen as a test kitchen for some new cookies I wanted to try in the coffee cubby case of The Surf Club, when Gabe came home.
I was scraping cookies off the baking trays and onto the cooling racks when he appeared.
I smiled at him.
He said, “Jesus Christ, what’s that fucking amazing smell?”
I smiled harder.
God, yes.
I loved this man.
I put down the tray, flicked off the oven mitt, nabbed a still-warm, but not-hot cookie and walked to him.
“Test cookie, and you’re my taster.” I handed it to him. “Molasses and date. Tell me what you think.”
He didn’t nibble.
He bit down on half of it, then his head tipped to the side, his lips tipped up, and after he swallowed, he said, “Winner.”
I reached up and tugged on his beard, and Gabe didn’t resist my invitation.
He dropped his head and kissed me.
Then he hooked an arm around me and pulled me closer.
Mm.
“Story isn’t long, so I can make it quick, and we can move past it,” he stated.
Cancel that mm.
He’d been working a case that day.
Did something happen at work?
“Christian Darvill,” he began.
Oh.
Him.
I didn’t really care, but even so, I was mildly curious what they found out about him.