Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 78250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 78250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 391(@200wpm)___ 313(@250wpm)___ 261(@300wpm)
Boone flips him off, his eyes finally drifting all the way shut. “You’re cooking tomorrow night, asshole.”
As they fall silent, I take a long pull of my beer, then clear my throat, knowing they aren’t going to like this. But I have to at least bring it up. “I’ve been thinking.”
Boone cracks one eye open and glances at me. “That’s always dangerous.”
“I’m serious,” I say. “I think I’m gonna put us on a dating site.”
Both of them go still.
It takes a full minute before Chance slowly turns his head to face me. “You mean, like, Tinder?”
“Maybe something classier,” I reply. “Or at least with better filters. Just hear me out, okay?”
“Here we go,” Boone mutters. “Fine. Pitch us, but for the record, I’m absolutely not on board with this plan.”
“That’s only because you haven’t heard me out yet but look. It’s not like women are lining up at our door out here. There are only so many people in this town, and half of them are related. The other half are over sixty.”
Boone sits forward with his brow furrowed and his features set in another one of those scowls that would make gladiators scatter. “We’re not dating online. That’s how you get catfished by someone named Brenda who turns out to be a seventy-year-old trucker from Idaho.”
“It could be worse,” I say. “At least Brenda might know how to cook spaghetti.”
Chance chuckles but shakes his head. “You’re not wrong about the lack of options, but dating apps? Come on, do you think what we’ve got going on fits nicely into an online bio?”
I spread my hands out to my sides. “What else are we supposed to do? Sit up here and wait for fate to FedEx us a girlfriend? Because unless UPS starts offering a mountain matchmaking service, this is it.”
Boone shoots me that flat, level stare he uses when he’s halfway between amused and done with me. “We’ll figure something out. We always do.”
“Yeah,” I say, softer now, as I turn to look out over the trees that are lit up in silver by the moonlight. “I’m just getting tired of waiting, is all.”
Neither of them says anything for a while. The heaters hum, and an owl calls somewhere down in the woods, but we just sit there, three guys on a porch too big for the silence, drinking beer, and pretending patience doesn’t feel a lot like loneliness.
5
ROXIE
Two days after crawling out of the rice, I’ve barely slept, and I’m paranoid as hell. I keep feeling like I’m being followed, convinced I see Caruso’s men everywhere I look.
Every time I close my eyes, I see the mob boss’s face, how utterly unaffected he’d looked when he said the DA’s name. I tried to convince myself that maybe I’d misheard or that “taking out Reed” meant buying him off or taking him out of the proverbial game rather than taking him out of this life.
If movies and rumors are anything to go by, though, mob bosses don’t buy people off, they bury them.
Every dark sedan I see out my window makes my pulse jump. Every guy in a leather jacket looks like he’s coming to finish me off. I’ve stopped going to work and answering phone calls.
A knock at my door startles me so badly I nearly topple off the couch. My whole body shakes until I hear my best friend’s voice through the door. “Rox, I know you’re in there. It’s me. Come on, open up.”
I drag in a deep breath and close my eyes, trying to shake off the fright. Then I get up and pad across my broom closet of an apartment toward the door. When I open it, I don’t even look at her. I just grab her arm and pull her inside before I throw the lock again, sliding the deadbolt into place just in case.
She sighs behind me. “This is no way to live, honey.”
“Tell me about it.” I finally turn to face her, surprised to see a tray holding two coffees in one hand and a duffel bag in the other. “Are you moving in or something?”
She shakes her head, her bright red ponytail swaying with the force of it. “Nope, but you’re moving out.”
“Excuse me?” I scoff, but I accept the coffee she offers me. “Where exactly am I going? I can’t come stay with you. We’ve talked about this. If they do find out who I am, we’d only be putting you in danger, too, if I were at your place.”
“Sure, but you’re not safe here, Rox,” she says, pulling her own coffee from the tray and striding to my bedroom, the duffel still clutched in her manicured hand. “Pack light, pack warm, and pack now.”
“I can’t just disappear.” I bring the cup to my lips to blow through the sip slot. “First, because I’m not James Bond and I have no idea how you even go about disappearing, and second, because people will notice.”