Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 161899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 809(@200wpm)___ 648(@250wpm)___ 540(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 809(@200wpm)___ 648(@250wpm)___ 540(@300wpm)
Goddamn shit.
“How did you know that?”
“Juno has ears and Pepper has girlfriends.”
Goddamn shit.
He was going to catch it at work from the man of whoever Pepper called.
In fact, he was surprised his phone wasn’t already blowing up.
Especially if it was Lottie who Pepper talked to (and Lottie would be the one doing the calling).
But also, if it was Ryn.
“Are you going to explain that?” Cisco pushed.
“I don’t think I have to tell you that’s none of your business.”
“Sorry, but Juno has made it my business.”
“Juno isn’t your business either,” Auggie returned.
“Pepper has a daughter,” Cisco shot back. “You cannot be so connected to your dick you don’t get she’s cautious about relationships because, if they work, she won’t be the only one in them.”
“Again, Pepper and me are none of your business.”
“As far as I can tell, there is no Pepper and you.”
Shit.
That stung.
Auggie shook it off.
“That’s none of your business either.”
Cisco kept going like Auggie didn’t speak.
“And there won’t be if you continue to act like a motherfucker.”
Auggie took in a deep breath, giving himself a second to process the fact he was having this conversation.
Then he made moves to extricate himself from it.
“You get that phone back from Juno,” he ordered. “And you do what you gotta do to shut Juno down. I’m putting this on you for Juno’s sake. If Pepper knew this shit was happening, she’d lose her goddamn mind and Juno is just a kid who wants good things for her mom. She didn’t do wrong, as such. She just went about it wrong, and she shouldn’t take too much heat for that. So sort it out, Cisco.”
He’d said what he’d come to say, so he made a move to get out of there.
“Pepper’s mother is dying of cancer.”
He stopped moving and again focused on Cisco.
“I don’t know how much Pepper knows,” Cisco carried on. “Juno only told me she’d heard her mom talking about her grandmother being ill. But I made a few calls to a few sources who could look into a few files. Her prognosis is dire. There are treatment options, some of them experimental, but they’re there and could prolong life, though likely not lead to her being cancer free. The family has opted to put her mother’s health in God’s hands.”
“Shit, fuck,” Auggie bit out.
He’d heard Pepper’s family was religious.
But damn.
“She found this out today. Also, today, she found out her ex wants her back.”
Auggie’s entire body grew solid.
“I’ve no idea where Pepper is with that,” Cisco continued. “But Juno does not want it. At all. She wants you for her mom. This desire of Juno’s, and the lengths she’ll go to achieve it, obviously needs to be explored. But with that, I’ll say myself, it’s none of my business. It’s Pepper’s. And if you’d get your head out of your goddamn ass, it’s yours.”
“I fucked shit up today.”
Now, why did he say that?
“I figured that out,” Cisco replied. “Considering Juno saw that you made her mother cry and heard that you’d called her a cocktease.”
Oh hell.
Auggie looked away, put a hand to the back of his neck and rubbed, saying, “Jesus.”
“She heard it as ‘corktease,’ and sounded confused, but I wasn’t confused,” Cisco explained.
Aug wanted to find “corktease” funny.
He just didn’t.
Because where that came from flat-out wasn’t.
He dropped his hand and looked back at the guy.
“She’s impenetrable,” he stated.
“No woman is impenetrable.”
Literally, this was true, since Auggie had penetrated her.
Figuratively, not so much.
“What happened today?” Cisco inquired.
Was he going to talk to this guy?
“Juno asked me to speak to her class for career day.”
He guessed he was going to talk to this guy.
And he kept doing it.
“Pepper showed looking gorgeous. First thing she did was touch me. A while ago, we’d had…a thing. It started fantastic. It got even better. But it didn’t end well. I wasn’t ready for her to touch me and act like we hadn’t had that thing. Then, when I was doing my presentation, she called me ‘honey.’ She’s never called me honey. It was sweet. I liked it. But it wasn’t mine. So it got under my skin that I was not that to her, she wouldn’t let me be that to her, but still, she thought it was okay to call me that, like I was that to her. And when all that played out and it was over, I was pissed and I tried to take off, but she followed me, pushed a conversation, and I lost it with her.”
Cisco was watching him closely. “Do you lose it often?”
“If you mean, do I have a temper? Yes. If you mean, do I normally treat women like shit? No.”
“This ‘thing’ you had, did you fuck her?”
Auggie didn’t answer that but he gave the guy a look.
Cisco nodded.
Yeah.
He read the look.
Auggie spoke.
“I want her, and I’m frustrated. Which is not an excuse. She let me in and then kicked me out, which made me more frustrated. That’s also not an excuse. Now, today, it’s her getting in my space, touching me and calling me ‘honey,’ when the last time I saw her, she was closing the door on me, and my dick was still wet with her.”