Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“Stupid?”
He laughs, shaking his head. “Good. I was gonna say good.”
“Did you take your bonus?”
“I signed the fuckin’ contract, but we have to work for a year to be vested. But now that I know that you didn’t take yours, I would feel like a first-class asshole if I were to take mine.”
“Well, don’t let me stop you. I’m kinda rich, Collin. I really, truly don’t need the money.”
“Ya know…” But he stops.
“What?”
He opens his mouth to finish his thought, but at the same moment, a group of kids come up to me and interrupt the moment. Two girls giggling. Two boys pretending to be brave. Bonnie, Lydia, Matthew, and Mark. They’ve been assigned to me this season as helpers. I know it, and they know it, but this is the first time they’ve actually had to talk to me, so they’re nervous and it takes about twenty minutes for us to sort out the details back in my tent. By that time, whatever Collin was going to say to me isn’t forthcoming.
What did I miss? What was he gonna say? What kind of poetry was gonna spill past those lips?
I wonder about this as the evening turns into night and the night gets old. Collin helps me set up—I put him in charge of the two boys—but then he’s called away by Jim Bob, so when I finally have the booth in order almost an hour later it’s nearly ten o’clock at night and I need to go looking for him.
Not that I require a ride home. Every house in Disciple is just a few blocks away from the Revival grounds and mine is no different.
But he’s staying with me now. Shouldn’t we go home together?
I can’t quite wrap my head around how we got into this position, but honestly, it feels very inevitable.
I find Collin leaning against a post inside the main tent. There’s a little meeting going on between Jim Bob and Simon, the preacher. Collin has a severe scowl on his face and he’s not even taking part in the conversation. So when he sees me, he pushes off the post and starts heading my way without a word to the other two men.
“Collin.” Jim Bob calls after him.
Collin doesn’t turn. Just growls over his shoulder. “I’m going home. I’ll be in tomorrow at eight thirty.” Then he pauses, just a few paces off from me, and turns to face Jim Bob and Simon. “For security.”
“Fine, fine.” Whatever they were talking about, Jim Bob gives up.
Collin puts his hand in the small of my back, leading me back the way I came in. When we’re outside the tent he sighs. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Rescuing me.”
“What was going on in there?”
“Never mind. He’s just pulling my strings. And if he keeps doing it, I won’t honor that contract.”
“He wants you to preach, doesn’t he?”
“It’s not gonna happen. That’s not why I’m here. And it’s not fair for this place to have expectations of me about this Revival stuff. I don’t want to walk that path. I don’t want to be my daddy.”
“I know.” When he was young, because his last name was Creed and his daddy was literally the star of the show, he was required to sit up there on the stage and play his part as… disciple, I guess.
I used to love watching him up there. It was the highlight of my weekend, if I’m being honest.
But I guess, now that I’m older, I see his point.
It’s not fair that we’re all connected to this thing and the part we play is determined by bloodlines.
Our family was never in the spotlight like that, so I never cared much. But it was different for Collin. Much different.
We’ve reached my truck and he opens my door for me. It makes me wonder if he’s just remembering his manners, or if he took them with him when he left. Did he open every woman’s door? Was he always a gentleman with them the way he is with me?
I’ll never ask him that question, of course. But I still wonder.
We go back to McBooms so he can pick up the Jeep, and then he follows me back to his house.
My house.
His house.
It’s a little bit crazy that it worked out this way.
When we walk through the door, I’m not sure what to do. So I just start asking questions. “Did you sleep in your room last night?”
He puts his keys on the counter. It’s not the same counter that was here all during his childhood. It’s all new. But it’s in the same place, so this one act—of putting his keys in a familiar place like it’s a habit—makes the whole thing even weirder.
“Nah. I slept on the couch.” He nods his head to the living room.
I look over there, but don’t see any evidence that he slept on the couch until I spy a duffle bag set neatly against the wall near the opening to the hallway. “Is that where you’re gonna sleep tonight?”