Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74225 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74225 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
“But you aren’t leaving until tomorrow,” I started to whine. But then I saw something in the corner of my eye, something in the back yard. When I went to the window and spied out the back I could have sworn what I saw hoping over the fence was a little kid. He disappeared as quickly as he’d appeared.
“What?” Brandon asked, standing beside me at the window. “What did you see?”
“I think there was a kid in the backyard,” I said, opening the back sliding door and shuffling over to the back gate with Brandon on my heels.
“A kid? Like small and scraggly looking?”
“Yeah? I thought you said you didn’t see anything.”
“I didn’t. Not right now, anyway. But the other day I was pulling out when I saw him standing behind me in the rearview mirror. By the time I turned around he was running away. Must just be a kid from around here, curious as to who his new neighbor lady is.”
“Yeah, must be...” I said walking back to the house with Brandon. My phone buzzed.
“Hello?”
“So we’re having a party tonight,” Ray practically shouted in my ear. “Come to the house around nine. One of the GG’s is watching the kids at her house so we’re going to have a big bon-fire. Lot’s of booze. Be here or I’m coming to get you myself!” Ray didn’t give me a chance to answer. The line went dead.
“Party?” Brandon questioned. “I mean; I could go for a party.” He paused. “Or would it be too weird for you to be there?”
The sound of a branch snapping caught my attention and I turned back to the woods. There was a slight rustling of the brush. I waited and listened.
Nothing.
“Dre, did you hear me?” Brandon asked. “Would it be too strange for you to be there? You know, since HE is going to be there.”
“Stranger things have happened,” I said, still looking out into the woods.
“Huh? No offense, but...what the fuck are you talking about?” he asked. “I’m talking about a party and you’re looking out into space like you just saw the ghost of Christmas future or some crap.”
“Party. Me. You. Got ya. I’m in,” I said, heading back into the house with an eerie sense of dread looming over me. I didn’t know if it was because of the party and the thought of seeing him again, or because when all the hairs on my arm stood on end I couldn’t shake a certain feeling.
A feeling like I was being watched.
****
CHAPTER TEN
PREPPY
“Hey! Get your ass up and come to the garage. We have something for you,” King boomed from the bottom of the porch. I sat on the front steps of fucking around with my new laptop. “What the fuck are you doing?”
“Looking up nude pics of your mom.”
“Turn off the porn and come with me,” he demanded.
“I’m not even looking at porn. Just checking to see what the fuck’s been going on in the world since I dropped off the face of it,” I admitted.
“Anything interesting?” King asked, putting a cigarette between his lips but not lighting it.
“Well, it seems I missed the election,” I said.
“For what?” King asked.
“President.”
“Of what?”
“Of the United States.”
“Of what?” King asked, again.
I glanced up to see him smiling. He’d been fucking with me. “You’re such a fucker. I was starting to think all that tattoo ink seeped into your brain,” I said. “I thought I was the one who is supposed to have all the jokes.”
Bear appeared next to King. “We’re just filling in for you until after the surgery,” he said, firing a text on his phone and shoving it back into his pocket.
“What surgery? What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked, wondering if I’d missed something.
“You know, the one to remove your head out of your ass,” Bear said with a booming laugh.
I flicked him off. “I hope your kid doesn’t inherit your dick-headedness, in fact, you better hope it doesn’t get your looks either because you got nothing to offer in that department.”
“I actually agree with you there. The more the kid gets from Ti the better,” he said, looking less like the grumpy as fuck Bear I remembered and more like this weird happy guy who invaded his body. It was like watching one of those alien invasion shows and Bear was the product of some happy as fuck alien who decided to take up residence in his shirtless as fuck body. “But right now,” Bear continued. “I need you to get your fucking ass up and come to the garage. We have something for you.”
“What? Why?” I asked.
“Why? Because I fucking said so. Get up. Come on. Don’t be a bitch,” King said.
“I’ll be there, give me one second.” I pulled up the social networking site I’d been on when they’d interrupted me.