Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75539 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
“What about your childhood home?” I asked him as we wrapped things up inside the sunroom. We sat on either end of a very comfortable dark blue couch as light washed in from the row of windows surrounding us.
Blake smiled and petted Winston, the tabby cat, who purred loudly on his lap. “I lived in Sunnyvale, North Carolina. It’s a smallish town without any of the close-mindedness that usually comes with it. Our community was full of Marvels and shifters and fae, a few vampires, and just regular people. Everyone got along, and there weren’t any creepazoids or weirdos.” His shoulders appeared to relax a bit. Warm memories must have flooded back to him. “That place also didn’t have the same baggage as this one.”
The stalker. I’d heard the story when I was getting the rundown on the job, but it had come from his father. Not from Blake. I hadn’t talked about it yet with him.
“Want to talk about it?” I asked him.
“It happened right over there.” He pointed through one of the windows. There was a small garden full of purple and blue lavender bushes bordered by a tall fence. A round table surrounded by four chairs was placed in the center. “I was having a lunch date with my first serious boyfriend. I thought we were safe. Then, I hear a desperate shout. I look, and I see the guy running toward the fence, full speed. He had a huge knife in his hand. He managed to climb over the fence before the Secret Service got to me.”
“Nothing happened to you, though, right?”
Blake shook his head. “Almost. It was close. He was only a couple feet away from me, yelling about no one having me if he couldn’t.”
“I’m sorry. That must have been terrifying.”
“It was,” Blake said. “And then, I don’t know if this is worse or not, but it’s the aftermath that really kind of traumatized me.”
“How so?” I leaned in. Blake and I usually had an easy time talking, but we hadn’t shared a moment like this yet. I could tell there was a vulnerability to Blake that I wasn’t used to seeing.
He swallowed and continued to give Winston head scratches. “It was seeing my stalker be strung up by red mana and then turned to swiss cheese by the same thing. The Secret Service is mostly made up of Marvels, so they launched threads at him like projectiles. Blood sprayed everywhere. My date looked like he’d taken a bath in cherry juice. And my stalker still wouldn’t take his eyes off me. Even when they turned bright red.”
“Was that the first time you’d seen something like that?”
“In person, yes. My parents kept me sheltered for my entire life. I’d never even been in a fight.” He squeezed his hands together and gnawed on his bottom lip. “A short while after that, I was put in self-defense classes. It’s why I held my own the other day during the attack.”
“You really did,” I said. He lifted his chest a little higher. “You kicked that shifter’s ass.”
“Until you had to rewind time and save my ass.”
“It’s what I’m here for.”
Black chuckled. He looked good in this light. His blond hair glowed, matching the shine in his gaze. “I thought you were here to eat my leftovers and bug me about not putting the toilet seat down.”
My turn to laugh. “It’s one of my pet peeves. Sorry. And what else am I supposed to do? You hate leftovers. I don’t want them going bad.”
“I do hate leftovers,” Blake confessed. “Do you always get to know your clients so well?”
“No,” I said. I crossed one leg over the other. “I don’t normally have them live with me.”
“I’m a special case, huh?”
“Very.” I smiled at him. I didn’t mean for the word to come out so loaded, but for some reason, it had.
Blake looked back out the window. His cheek turned slightly pink. I could see the gears turning in his head, as if they were on overdrive.
“You’re an overthinker, aren’t you?”
He let out a scoff. “That’s an understatement. My brain never shuts off. I’m definitely a worrier. About the past, the present, the freaking future. All of it.”
“What are you worrying about right now?”
“Whether or not I’m sounding dumb to you.”
That caught me by surprise. I cocked my head and moved closer to him on the couch. “That’s a very silly worry, Blake. You don’t sound dumb in the slightest. I’ve never once thought that from being around you. You come across as one of the most well-read and sharp-minded people I’ve ever met.”
“Well, that’s a first,” he said. He had his eyes trained down at his sneakers. “I mean, I love to read, don’t get me wrong. Even then, I’m usually fumbling all over my words. Whenever I get nervous—which is often—I end up getting super awkward.”