Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 115590 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 578(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115590 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 578(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
“Yeah, well… Things change.” I threw open the door and smiled back at him. “Thanks for the lift.”
I was almost to the trailer when I heard his car door slam. “Monroe.” That stopped me, for one, because Chase never called me anything other than Moe, and for two, he sounded pissed. “You’re doing this for him, aren’t you?”
“Chase, I don’t want to talk about this right now.” I knew how it looked. Like I was a stupid girl making rash decisions. I knew, because any other time, I would be the person judging that girl, but Zepp was different. But I couldn’t explain that to Chase.
“Thanks again for the lift,” I said, unlocking the door and stepping inside.
The trailer was a mess as always, but right now, it felt like a haven of sorts. I got some water, then collapsed onto the couch, ready to shut my eyes when someone banged over the door. My temper spiked. Why couldn’t Chase leave it alone?
“I told you, I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped, answering the door.
Instead of Chase, it was Zepp standing on my front step, a world of chaos swirling in his eyes. He shouldered his way inside, his broad frame filling the doorway. “What. The fuck. Was that?” He pointed toward the yard. “Did you stay with him last night? I tried to call you and text you, and what the hell, Monroe!”
That was where his mind went? That I’d stayed with Chase. “What? No.” I groaned. I didn’t have the patience for his jealousy. “Zepp, I really can’t do this now.”
He grabbed my elbow when I turned around. “Oh, you’re gonna have to do it right now, or we are fucking done.”
A cold thread of panic pulled at me, followed by a spike of anger. That easy? He would break up with me that easy? “You think I stayed with Chase?”
His gaze dragged over me, a ripple of disgust snarling his lip when he tugged at the sleeve of my shirt. “You’re in the same clothes you left my house in, Roe. What am I supposed to think?”
“That I wouldn’t cheat on you!” Emotionally drained, I had lost the ability to reason. I could have just told him the truth outright, but the fact that he thought I would be unfaithful had me so pissed. I had told him two days ago that I loved him, and here he thought I would jump straight from that to Chase’s bed. Suddenly everything I thought I knew about him, about us, seemed in jeopardy.
“You know what.” I stormed to the door and threw it open, pointing to the porch. “Get out!”
His nostrils flared. Jaw ticced. He stared right through me, cold and hard, then gave a curt nod before shoving through the doorway. Minutes later, the distant rumble of his bike in Wolf’s drive broke through the silence in the trailer, the engine screaming when he, no doubt, shot off down the road.
Pain dug into my chest, and a lump settled in my throat. I went to my room and plugged my phone in before falling onto my bed. That tugging sense of need consumed me, and I hated that I missed him because he was an asshole. I fell asleep, telling myself that the tears in my eyes had nothing to do with my dickhead boyfriend and everything to do with my mom’s not caring if she died. Again.
I slept for a few hours before Jade’s string of text messages asking why I hadn’t been at school woke me up. She came by and grabbed me after school, taking me to Waffle Hut to get some food, and when I told her about the fight with Zepp, she gasped. “He said that?”
I picked up my soda just as the waitress walked by in a cloud of cheap perfume. “Yep.”
“So, he thinks you fucked Chase?” She shook her head when I nodded. “What a dick.”
With a bit of sleep, I’d realized I probably could have saved myself a lot of hassle and just told Zepp the truth, but it was the principle of it. He didn’t ask where I’d been, only if I stayed with Chase. It should have been the last thought that crossed his mind. Not the first. And it hurt. Far more than I ever thought it would. I glanced at my phone, something that had become a habit in the last twenty-four hours. Still no texts or calls. His words rang through my mind on repeat: you’re gonna have to do it right now, or we are fucking done. So were we done? Was this it? That reality hadn’t really settled in—like my mind chose to hope and my heart refused to accept it.
I fiddled with my straw. “I told him I love him.” Silence. I lifted my gaze to Jade.