Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 69365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69365 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Not even think twice about handing him the coordinates and the code.
What kinda fucking spell am I under?
How do I break it?
“The librarians,” is announced just above a whisper as though he fears getting the people in trouble.
Bewilderment bursts onto my face but not out of my mouth.
“My school librarian was actually married to the head, city, public librarian.”
“No shit?”
“100,” he warmly replies and clicks a few more things on his keyboard. “I was six. And my school librarian, Mrs. Caterham, recognized the signs of abuse – super common in foster care – and arranged for me to stay after school in the library for ‘tutoring’. Once it was time to close up at school, she would then walk me over to the public library, where her husband would keep an eye on me until it was time to take me home.”
“Your foster family never noticed?”
“Not as long as I was home by headcount.”
Pain pounds unforgivingly in the center of my chest.
“They’d let me read whatever. I was always drawn to books about animals. The jungle. The rainforest. The mountains.”
“Very Steve Irwin esque.”
“Perfect 10 compliment.” He winks. “I’d spend some time reading and then they would shift my attention to learning comp shit that I would later learn wasn’t meant for me to actually ever learn. They’d feed me dinner. Make sure I had plenty of snacks to tide me over ‘til the next day. Send me home with new socks. Underwear. A shark shaped toothbrush. ” It’s his turn to become wistful over the memories. “They were good people. The best people I’ve ever known. The only ones who ever really gave a fuck about me – besides Garcia.”
“What happened to them?”
“They disappeared,” he answers without missing a beat. “Erased from existence as if they were nothing more than a psychotic break, I didn’t know I had suffered.”
“Did you ever go searching for them?”
“Digitally? Of course.” Cockiness curls his lips into a grin. “Turns out they had deep ties to a top-secret government program, organized a rebellion using their unique positions, got labeled as committing treason, and met a very gruesome death staged as a robbery.”
There’s no stopping my head from angling itself slightly to the side on a dropped jaw.
“They were really good fucking people.” His focus returns to the device in his lap. “They didn’t deserve to die like they did.”
“They were basically your parents.”
“Yeah.”
“Ripped away from you.”
He nods yet opts out of speaking.
“Do you know what happened to your biological ones or why you went into foster care?”
“They didn’t want me.”
The urge to demand more details is thankfully soothed by being offered them.
“Birth mother was fifteen. She could not keep a baby out of wedlock. Sperm deliverer was eighteen. High school quarterback. Had a full ride scholarship. Didn’t wanna throw it all away.” He shrugs his indifference but harshly pounds his fingers across the keys. “So, he threw me away instead. Literally.” More clacking. “According to my sealed paperwork – that I helped myself to unsealing – I was found in a trash bag.”
An uncomfortable lull beaches our conversation preventing me from diving deeper.
Swimming more aggressively in waters he’s clearly not ready to share.
Guess that makes us even now.
Guess a topic change should occur.
“Hey, what do you know about kangaroos?”
Zero immediately pauses his actions, redirects his gaze in my direction, and quirks a curious eyebrow. “Why?”
“Garcia brought them up earlier, so now I wanna know what you know about them, Mr. Wildlife.”
“He was just usin’ an idiom.”
“Not sure the attorney at law can spell idiom.”
His light chortles are barely swallowed.
“But I don’t wanna talk about him.” Our eyes stay locked on one another. “I wanna keep talking about you.”
Surprise noticeably shoots through his stare.
“I like talking about you.”
Additional shock makes itself seen.
“I like learning about you.”
Awe threatens to takeover.
“I like learning what you know.”
“About…kangaroos?”
“To start.” Pushing myself away from the edge of the pool is followed by me wiggling a finger for him to join me. “And if you’re good a boy…” a salacious bite of my bottom lip is taken, “I’ll let you finish.”
The fact that he doesn’t hesitate at all to abandon his laptop is flattering.
And expected.
And the total opposite of his best friend who is beyond obsessed with doing what he has decided is the right thing despite what anyone else might think.
Or say.
Or feel.
Like a bull shark no one needs to be swimming near.
“Programs running,” Zero announces upon the removal of his shirt. “I can let it do its thing,” he swiftly shifts to the discarding of his shorts, “while I do you.”
“Not worried about who might be listening to us fuck?”
“Nope.” Another unbothered shrug is delivered seconds before his bottoms hit the ground. “Let ‘em.”
Something tells me casual screwing isn’t exactly new to him.
Nor is being heard.
However, I can’t ignore the idea that he doesn’t want what we have to be that fleeting…or that he’s not the only one who wants more than we’ve agreed to deliver.