Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 107352 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107352 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 537(@200wpm)___ 429(@250wpm)___ 358(@300wpm)
“I’m so bored,” Shaw James, another friend of mine, whined from my right. “And there’s a reception after this.”
“Shh,” his husband, Benji, chided, leaning forward so I could see him. He had to. Shaw James was not a small man. Between his height, his shoulders, and all the muscle, Benji appeared absolutely tiny in comparison. “You all need to keep it down and be respectful.”
“Your wedding wasn’t like this,” I grumbled.
“Shaw and I got married in his parents’ backyard,” Benji reminded me. “This is not that. This is fancy.”
“I liked that better,” I mumbled. “I am here under duress.”
“Stop saying that,” Rais warned me. “You’ve said that nine times already, and you know our boss probably didn’t want us here to begin with. We only made the guest list because of Owen.”
“That’s not true,” Sienna argued. “I’ve talked to Mr. Colter, and he treasures you all.”
“Oh, I’m gonna be sick,” Shaw replied.
“Stop speaking,” Benji ordered.
“I would have made the guest list,” Ash said flatly. “As would Nick.”
“Thank you.” Nick Madison, who was sitting behind us, leaned forward in the pew and put a hand on Ash’s shoulder. “That’s nice of you to say.”
“You’re very welcome.”
Nick Madison was a huge rock star. His tours sold out in hours, he had a Netflix special a while back, a crapton of Grammys, and any and every kind of other award you could think of. He was also married to the—bar none—grouchiest man on the planet, my friend Locryn Barnes. If you looked up snarly in a dictionary, Loc’s face would be there.
“When Jared Colter leaves his intended at the altar to come kill you all, I’m gonna sit here and let it happen,” the aforementioned Locryn Barnes growled.
“As though he would hurt your wonderful husband,” Ash said, sucking up some more.
“Or you,” Nick apprised him. “You’re a national treasure.”
Fuck. All.
He was an actor, for fuck’s sake; he hadn’t cured the common cold. And yes, he was an excellent actor, but still, the mutual-appreciation society was getting old.
“Seriously, shut up,” Rais directed.
Despite being in the last two rows of the church, we did need to be quieter. And yes, we weren’t being that noisy, we were whispering, after all, but the father or pastor or whatever the hell he was—I hadn’t been listening at all by the time he was introduced—had begun addressing the assembly, and we were chatting. We were going to get in trouble if we kept it up.
This was what came from promising someone you loved that yes, absolutely, you would make a date happen even if there was scary, death-comes-from-the shadows, black-ops work that needed to be done and you were, at least on paper, retired. I knew it wasn’t going to happen on schedule as soon as Owen started talking about it. The timing was simply too tight. No one was surprised when it had to be moved, and then again. Originally, it was going to be June of last year. Then it got rescheduled to May of this year, and then, finally, because Owen said things like, of course I understand, and no, really, it’s okay, Jared refused to let it go into year three. That was smart. If you couldn’t make a wedding happen, what did that say about the long-term prospects for the marriage? So Jared set a hard date for fall, which was why we were all here, on the first Saturday in November, being slowly, insidiously bored to death.
To be fair, death would probably not occur, we would just want it to. But Owen had been guaranteed the day he’d always dreamed of with the man he adored, loved, treasured—any gooey adjective was applicable—and by God, Jared Colter would make that happen.
I glanced at the men up there with him—Darius Hawthorne, standing on Jared’s right, and Dante Cerreto, standing beside Darius—and I was glad they were there for him. I was thinking, between the two of them, that they had killed more men than malaria. And yes, it was an exaggeration, but the fact of the matter was, they were both utterly lethal. As hit men, they were used to sitting for hours waiting for their mark and were both exceedingly patient. However, at the moment, Dante had started to very slowly, but I could still tell, shift his weight from one foot to the other. It made sense. They’d been up there a long time already, and all of them, Jared included, had many, many old injuries that could kick in at any time. The knees weren’t what they used to be. Someone could cramp from old shrapnel, scar tissue, or various parts that had been replaced.
“Why are you yelling?” Ash teased Shaw about his hoarse whisper, then turned to Benji. “And it was so nice of you to fly in for this.”
I’d missed something while ruminating on death from ennui.