Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 73230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73230 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 366(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
He’d rolled his eyes at me and dismissed me…or I’d thought he had.
Apparently, he heard every word, because when I looked over at him, after slipping the jacket on my shoulders, he held out a helmet. The very exact one that I told him I wanted when I went online to price the jacket.
“You got it!” I squealed, grabbing the helmet from him and placing it on top of my head, strapping it down under my chin before turning to him.
“How do I look?” I asked, turning this way and that.
He smiled, his gleaming white teeth standing out starkly against the brown of his beard.
“You look good, darlin’.”
Did his voice sound deeper?
I could tell he would’ve used other words, had my parents not been there.
I threw my arms around his shoulders for all of four seconds before I moved to my father.
“Thank you, Daddy,” I squeezed him tight.
I blew my mom a kiss over my father’s shoulders, and she caught it before bringing it to her heart.
“You’re welcome, girl. You got a good one,” he muttered.
I leaned back and let him see my eyes.
“I did, didn’t I?” I nodded, removing my helmet. “How do you like him?”
He turned me so that I could see Casten.
He was standing with one side leaned against the bar height counter, his beer dangling from one finger he had curled around the rim.
He was speaking with my sister and Mig, and it struck me then how much I wanted my father to like him, because I could see myself spending the rest of my life with Casten if he allowed it.
“I like him,” my father confirmed. “And I think Jet would like him for you, too.”
I turned suddenly tear filled eyes to my father.
“You think so?” I asked.
“Know so,” he agreed. “Casten came to me Monday evening, wanting to tell me and your mother what was going on, and where you’d be if I needed you. Then he gave me his intentions.”
“His intentions?” I asked in surprise. “And what were those?”
My dad, the devil, smiled evilly at me. “Something that I’m sure he’ll show you, as soon as he wants you to know.”
I stuck my tongue out at him.
“You’re mean,” I accused.
He shrugged like it didn’t mean anything to him that I thought he was mean.
“Part of a parent’s job, making sure their kids are provided for and well taken care of. Nowhere in the handbooks, though, does it say I have to be nice while doing it,” he informed me.
No, I don’t reckon it did.
Chapter 17
My ex is a perfect example as to why I shouldn’t be able to make informed decisions when it comes to my life.
-Tasha to Casten
Casten
“I’ll go in, and then I’ll signal to you when you can get the car,” Ellis, another man belonging to Hail Auto Recovery, said.
Ellis gave me an ‘okay’ sign, and I walked up to the front of the house and pounded on the door.
The door opened slowly, and a little girl, no more than three or four, peaked her head through.
Her eyes went wide, and she looked back at the man I saw laying on the couch before she ran for the other room.
I knew I was intimidating.
To a three or four-year-old, I probably looked like a scary motherfucker.
I turned and gave Ellis the sign, then stepped foot over the threshold.
My eyes took everything in at once.
The various amounts of drugs spread out on the table beside the man on the couch.
The bong that was dangling, still smoking, from the man’s fingers.
The dog, obviously neglected, locked up in a cage in the corner of the room.
The direction where the little girl ran had me wondering what was back there, so I slowly peeked my head around the corner into the bedroom and stared in shock at what I’d seen.
“Holy…fuck.” I said. “Holy mother fuck.”
The room was brimming with drugs. They were literally on every available surface.
The little girl was trying her damnedest to hide under the bed, obviously not able to due to the sheer amount of shit there.
An alarm on the truck Ellis was impounding sounded, causing me to hurry.
Peeking into the bathroom really quick to be sure no one was there, I came back into the living room and found the man on the couch no longer asleep.
Instead, he was at the door with a shotgun in his hand, aimed at Ellis and his partner, whose name I’d neglected to get.
I took two long strides across the room and had the guy in a headlock before he could even turn his gun toward me.
“Get down on your knees,” I ordered, putting as much pressure as I dared, trying to keep the man from passing completely out.
He was a big mother fucker.
At least six five and three hundred pounds, if not more.
This man wouldn’t be easy to shove into my truck without cooperation on his part.