Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 105709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105709 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 529(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Hella
Whiskey moves too slow, as if it prefers to torture you on its way down, much like someone else I know. Yet the more I drink, the further away I feel from the world. By the time Beast drops into the seat beside me, arm slung across my shoulders, nothing in my sight holds steady.
His hand tightens, getting my attention. “Wanna tell me why you let them go?”
I tip the bottle again, fire chafing down my throat. “Yeah. I told her to stay. Fucking basically begged for her to keep Olive here.” Words fail to string together. Fuck it. He’ll know what I’m trying to say. “She said no, so that’s that. You know the rest.”
Beast watches me close, as if trying to figure out how he’s gonna approach the subject.
Jessie, the new club girl, lands on my lap. Her dress hugs her tightly, her tits sprawl out everywhere, and her platinum blonde hair hangs long, about the same length as Melissa's. Only I bet if I pulled that shit hard enough, it'd all come out. Where Melissa’s is natural, this bitch’s hair is only that long because some poor horse is trotting around without a fucking tail.
I drop deeper into my chair, cap shading my eyes, legs sprawled wide open.
“Can I do anything to help you, baby?” Bile rises up my throat. Fuck. Since when did whiskey make me sick?
“Yeah.” I lift my hips to hers, my cock thrusting against her pussy. My hand trails up to the back of her neck before I force her ear to my lips. “You can stay the fuck off my shit.” I throw her to the ground, not giving a single fuck who she lands on.
Beast sits back, silent except for the way his finger traces his mouth. My glass finds my lips again.
He finally snickers. “You gonna scare off every club bitch we get? Brothers not gonna be happy about that.”
“If they try me, yes. And I don’t give a shit about their dicks.”
He holds me in place, unmoving. “And when she comes crawling back? You taking her?”
There’s a pause in my lungs before I answer. “Nope. Only Olive.”
Thirty-Four
Melissa
The morning light filters through my bedroom curtains in shades of pale gold. I stretch under the covers, my body sore in all the wrong places—tension, not satisfaction. My phone sits on the nightstand, screen dark. No messages. Not that I expected any.
Three weeks since I left Tāwaha.
Three weeks of radio silence from Hella, except for his nightly FaceTime calls with Olive.
I swing my legs out of bed and pad barefoot across the hardwood floor to Olive's room. She's already awake, sitting cross-legged on her bed with her blonde hair tangled around her shoulders. She looks up when I enter, studying me with an intensity that shouldn't belong to a child.
“Morning, baby.”
“Morning, Mama.” The word makes my chest tighten. She's been calling me that for two weeks now. Two weeks of slowly opening up, of testing boundaries, of figuring out how to be my daughter. Of me figuring out how to be a mother.
“You ready for school?” I ask, firing off a text to my own to fill her in on all that’s happened since I first told her about Olive. She’s been great with her, calling, sending gifts, flying up to Westbeach when she gets the chance. She joked about grandchildren being God’s apology for all the shit your own children put you through. She should have been a grandmother and not a mother. Figures.
Olive nods, sliding off the bed. “Can I wear the purple shirt?”
“The one with the skull bunny thing?”
“Uh-huh.”
I help her get dressed, braiding her hair the way she likes it—loose and simple and a little messy. I think it reminds her of Hella. She chatters about her friend Manaia, something about first break, and how Mrs. Patterson said her drawing of a motorcycle was “very detailed.” I smile and nod, trying not to think about how she learned to draw motorcycles in the first place.
Don't go there.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out, thinking it’s my mother, or maybe it’s — Phoebe's name lights up the screen. Not Hella. Never Hella.
Not during the day, anyway.
“Hey, Phoebs.”
“Morning, sunshine! Listen, I know this is last-minute, but can I steal Olive for a few hours after school? I want to take her shopping for the wedding. Get her a cute dress, maybe some shoes. Blake wants to come too—he's oddly excited about having a niece to spoil.”
The wedding. Beast and Yana's wedding. This Saturday. In Tāwaha. Where Hella will be. Where I'll have to see him again.
Realisation knots in my stomach.
I smile, kissing Olive’s head. “Yeah, of course. She'd love that.”
“Perfect! I'll pick her up after school and promise not to make any kids cry.” The first time Phoebe picked up Olive, she created chaos in the drop and go line outside the school. Apparently, making your turbo whistle isn’t an appropriate way to get kids to, and I quote, ‘get in their fucking cars faster’.