Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 67755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 339(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67755 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 339(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
When I hear something shatter in the kitchen, hear a round of cursing, then smell burning, my lips twitch. I’m vastly amused that Lennox was right about the burning. I feel even more exhausted after that long afternoon, and I still have to get through dinner…or maybe not if it’s hopefully been burned to a crisp. I know I certainly don’t owe anyone anything, but I guess my manners are too good to lock myself in my room for the night and not come back down. Or maybe it’s just too exhausting thinking about having to deal with the interruptions that would no doubt materialize, probably in the form of a banging on the door or the said door being taken off the hinges by an industrious granny who has been called back and won’t take no for an answer.
I head upstairs to wash my face and hands since I could use a splash of cold water to revive me. I can’t remember the last time I ever felt so exhausted. I know that if I fell into bed right now, my body would buzz with everything I’ve learned over the past day. My brain wouldn’t have an easy shut-off switch.
In the bathroom where I bathed last night, wishing I could disappear down the drain, I stand at the pedestal sink and splash cold water onto my face. It feels fabulous. I pat dry with a fluffy black hand towel and study myself in the mirror. Is it crazy that just a day or so ago, I knew this face and everything behind it? I thought I knew who I was and what I wanted. I want to laugh at that naïve person now, my me from two days ago. The me who didn’t know that her boring world was about to be rocked. No, not just rocked. Freaking landslide, earthquake, bulldozed, erupted with lava and magma, class ten disaster over.
The mirror is attached to an old school medicine cabinet, and I can’t say what makes me do it, but I find myself opening it up and staring inside, and holy blazing meatballs, what do we have here? Why didn’t I think of this last night? There are tons of over-the-counter meds in here. And, it just so happens, a box of sleeping pills.
I don’t think. I just act.
I read the box quickly for dosage instructions, take out three horse-sized white powdery pills, grab the plastic tissue box holder off the back of the toilet and start crushing. I don’t stop until everything is ground into a fine powder, then I sweep everything off the edge of the sink and into a tissue which I twist up and fix firmly under the waistband of my skirt since I have no pockets.
I just hope Mr. Midnight has a drink at the table.
Yes, I know, I know. It’s quite devious of me, and I do feel a few twinges of regret, but the guy deserves it. Pot meet kettle. No, that’s not right. More like taste meet your own medicine. I do feel a few more twinges of doubt as I head back downstairs. I’m not a wicked person, and this is wicked two-point-oh and then some.
I make my way to the kitchen, where banging, cursing, and sizzling noises are all echoing from. I enter from the living room side and sidle up to the table. I’m. In. Luck.
Alden has poured two glasses of red wine. The table is huge, and he’s set two place settings across from each other. A glance over my shoulder tells me that he’s busy trying not to burn whatever he’s currently making at the stove. I snatch the tissue out of my skirt, grab his glass, and dump the powder in.
And…shit. Shit, shit, shit sticks times a hundred. It all just floats on top. I poke at it frantically with my finger, which makes some of the powder dissolve a little. Finally, I settled for a hard swish of the glass. That works better, and the panic rocking my stomach calms down just a little. My belly isn’t so much a stormy sea as it is big waves. I keep swirling, and Alden is so busy banging around behind me that he never even notices. It takes a few minutes, but at last, the powder disappears. I check the bottom of the glass for evidence, but nope, it appears to have fully dissolved. Maybe I’m finally going to get lucky.
Even if there are men outside, this is about proving a point.
I think.
Good gravy, do I even know what I think anymore? Well, no. Not really. Because right now, I’m turning around and looking at Alden, at his black-clad form at the stove, and my eyes are seriously not hovering below the waist and landing on his super tight buns. Fine, okay, so they are. Hello, Alden’s super gorgeous buttocks. Nice to meet you again. I’m not as close as last time, but I can already feel a heat wave coming on. I want to reach up and see if there are beads of sweat on my forehead and touch my lips to make sure I’m not drooling.