Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 136025 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 680(@200wpm)___ 544(@250wpm)___ 453(@300wpm)
As though to say, don’t fucking leave yet.
I’m not going anywhere.
28
FARROW KEENE
I can’t sleep.
Lawyers finally sent me some of the old NDAs. Find the stalker sits at the forefront of my mind. I just want an identity. That way if this fucker ever nears Maximoff, I can restrain them. And possibly knock their teeth out.
I pour a coffee, turn on an iPad, and sprawl out length-wise in the booth. Half the bus sleeps off a pot high, the other half are passed out from the drama.
And besides Oscar who’s driving, I only find two other people awake.
Donnelly draws in a notebook on the other side of the booth. Reading glasses perched on his nose. Next to him, Luna flips through Foundation by Isaac Asimov.
Luna lowers the orange book, her charm bracelet clinking. “You know something funny?” she says to me.
“What?” I rest my iPad against a bent knee and open my email.
“I kept thinking my brother would end up with someone boring, annoying, or high-maintenance. Someone I’d hate. Kinney, Xander, and I talked about it all the time, but Moffy actually fell for someone cool.”
In seconds, I’ll be prying into his sex life. To be honest, I like the distraction she’s tossing my way.
Donnelly smirks. “He’s not cool.” He never looks up from his notebook. “You know he was in honor society at Yale.”
“That ‘society’ was actually a program.” I use air-quotes.
“Same thing.”
“No,” I say matter-of-factly. “One you show up and participate in events. The other, you just take classes with an H beside the number.” I snatch his notebook, and his blue eyes narrow. “And stop shitting on people who try in school.”
He yanks the notebook back. “I tried. Still didn’t do well.”
“Ditto,” Luna says and uses one of his Sharpies to draw on her kneecap.
“Didn’t graduate either,” Donnelly adds and erases some of his sketch.
Luna smudges the black ink on her kneecap. “From high school?”
“Yeah.”
Luna glances at him, then me. “I think I’d be okay without high school.”
She has a trust fund. She would be fine, but something needs to motivate her to finish this goal. Most people don’t have the luxury of quitting.
I gesture for the Sharpie that she caps. “Give me.” She tosses it, and I bite off the cap and outstretch her arm on the table. I write the first three lyrics to “Dreams” by The Cranberries across the inside of her arm.
I glance up at Luna. “Being a high school drop-out with no GED is sad.”
Donnelly grins. “You tell her, Farrow.”
“I could secretly be a sad alien,” she tells us with a goofy smile. “My weapon is my tear ducts.”
Hales. I start smiling.
Donnelly returns to his sketch. “Sad Alien would be a cool band name.”
“Uh-huh, think of the Sad Alien merch. Plushies, toothbrushes, condoms, dildos—slogan: I want a sad alien in me.”
I laugh.
“Girl, take my money,” Donnelly says, accent thick.
Luna admires the lyrics on her arm after I finish, then she randomly asks, “Were you two friends with J.P.?”
I cap the pen. “No. I didn’t like the guy.”
“Me either,” Donnelly says.
“He never believed half of what I ever told him. He would always chuckle with an okay, huh-huh like I was stupid.” Luna bites her thumbnail. “But I feel guilty that he got fired.” In a unanimous vote, the Tri-Force terminated J.P. tonight.
I’m not complaining.
“Shit happens,” I say. “Your brother, your parents, and the whole security team would rather you had someone you trusted.”
Donnelly nods.
Quinn is now Luna’s 24/7 bodyguard. When Akara made the announcement tonight, Oscar grabbed his brother by the cheeks and said, “You’re ready for this, little bro. I taught you all I know.”
“I think you mean I taught him everything,” I said. I wasn’t that excited about the shift. Not just because Quinn is easy to be around, but because Thatcher is still temporarily Jane’s bodyguard. I thought he’d be gone by now. Back to Epsilon.
He even made the effort to remind me, “Nothing has changed. I’m still watching you and Maximoff.”
I still have a fucking chaperone.
Donnelly lowers his notebook to erase the pencil, and I notice the flying saucer sketches. That’s not something he would draw.
“He’s giving me a tattoo on the bus,” Luna suddenly fills me in. She couldn’t have told Maximoff because he’d be awake right now if she did. I can’t picture him talking her out of a tattoo. He’s mentioned that he’s surprised she didn’t already have one, but he’d be here for moral support. A hand to hold.
I swig my coffee. “You don’t want to wake your brother up?”
She shrugs. “He looked tired.”
I nod. “He is.”
“I’ll show him in the morning.”
I eye the flying saucer drawings. “What are you charging her?” He usually only does tattoos for money or favors. Never free. I’m glad because he could easily waste his talent on freebies for friends.