Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 73311 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73311 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 293(@250wpm)___ 244(@300wpm)
All the men that were standing closest were ones I’d seen around town on their bikes. Members of this chapter.
They all had long looks on their faces and my belly pinched.
“What are we eating?” I asked softly, breaking the silence that’d fallen.
I didn’t know what else to say.
I didn’t know these men.
Didn’t know their personalities. Didn’t know whether they even wanted to be pulled out of their thoughts, but I had to try. The look on all of their faces was heartbreaking.
The one closest to me grinned, though it was a sad grin.
“I like a woman that can eat,” he declared.
He was tall. At least a foot over my height, if not more.
Though that wasn’t hard to do. I was five-foot-one, and not a millimeter over. Everybody was taller than me. Even nine-year-old boys named Davis.
“Imogen, from left to right is Seanshine, Truth, Ghost, Tommy Tom, and Big Papa. Fellas, this is Imogen, my neighbor.”
I wasn’t the only one that read the rest of the underlying message.
With his arm around my back, hand hooked in around my opposite hip, it was clear to not just me, but everyone else, that I was his…at least for tonight.
Now, if only that would be true all the time…
Chapter 11
Milk is good for your teeth. So is minding your own goddamned business.
-Note to self
Aaron
“So I heard my neighbors fucking last night,” Truth says. “They were fucking so loud, slamming the headboard against the wall and shit.”
I raised a brow at him.
“Yeah, so?” I asked, waiting for the moral of the story.
“So I go out to my bike this morning and see a couple of medics taking an old lady out on a stretcher from the next row house over,” he continued.
I winced, thinking he was about to say that she had a heart attack during sex.
However, what came out of his mouth made me burst out laughing.
“According to the neighbor on my other side, she fell out of bed and was banging her cane on the floor and the wall to try to get someone’s attention,” Truth’s smile widened.
“Yeah…” I waited.
“And now I feel bad for masturbating to what I thought was sex, when in fact she’d fallen and couldn’t get up.” He burst out laughing.
I rolled my eyes and went back to my sandwich.
Imogen, who’d drank right along with all the boys, laughed uproariously, which was Truth’s intention.
All the boys looked at her, staring at her like she was the next best thing since sliced bread.
“Apparently, you didn’t have a hard time getting it up,” Ghost muttered.
“You’re one to talk,” Truth shot back. “How’s the chick that you stalk?”
Ghost ignored the question.
It intrigued Imogen though.
“How do you not know who your neighbors are?” he countered, trying to change the subject. “You’ve been there for ten years.”
“Why do you stalk a woman?” Imogen asked.
She was just buzzed enough to make her brave. Give her the courage to speak to the men that she wouldn’t otherwise normally have spoken to.
Ghost didn’t answer her. Not at first.
“My wife.”
Her brows rose. “You don’t look like the creepy stalker type,” she told him honestly. “If you were stalking me, I’d open my bedroom window to let you in. Just sayin’.”
I snorted, leaning forward to cover her mouth.
“What about me, darlin’?” I teased. “Would you open your window for me?”
“I’d go outside to meet you,” she told me when I removed my hand. “Naked.”
Laughter burst out around the table we were sitting at.
“You’re not supposed to tell him he’s winning,” Memphis informed Imogen. “Then it’ll give him a big head, and he’ll have you pregnant for the third time.”
She pointed down at her belly as if to say ‘see?’
Imogen’s head turned to study the other woman.
“I’m not seeing the problem.”
Laughter filled the air, and Downy pulled his woman into his chest. “She doesn’t look convinced, baby.”
Memphis waved her hand through the air. “She will. Eventually.”
She eyed me when she said it, and I had a feeling that I was being told what to do. Not out loud, no, but silently. She was looking at me with a calculating look, wondering if I’d have the balls to say anything.
“Aaron, how’s your brother’s baby doing?” Downy broke into the stare down. “I got a bird’s eye view of the labor, you know.”
I winced. “I heard.”
“What happened?” Imogen squirmed until she could see me. “Are your sister-in-law and the baby all right?”
I nodded. “Perfect. Now.”
She glared at me, and I barely contained the urge to smile. It wouldn’t do to show her that her attitude amused me.
“But she had their baby on the side of the road on the way to the hospital. Booth pulled over just in time to play catcher.”
“How does that even happen?” Truth asked.
“You’d be surprised. I’ve ran three calls in my time as a paramedic with Kilgore. Each of those the baby was born before they could reach the hospital.”