Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Zac smirked, and I freaking failed to keep from smiling. “I’ll text you later, kiddo,” he told me.
I shrugged, not wanting him to feel forced to if he forgot or had other plans. There was no way in hell he’d think I assumed we’d see each other regularly. I was already surprised we’d seen each other as much as we had. Three times in less than two months? I didn’t even get to see my own family members that often.
Plus, I had no idea what was going on with him and football.
But that must have been the wrong way to respond because I didn’t miss the way his eyes narrowed, just a little, but enough. I got saved from whatever thoughts were in his head when his manager called out, “Zac!”
Those blue eyes settled on me, still thoughtful, as he took a step back. “I’ll text you later.”
Sure he would, but I still gave him a smile that time. “If you have time and want to. Have a good day.”
The pensive face he was making went nowhere as he turned around and headed toward his friends and manager, slapping Trevor on the back. They all followed the woman through the door and into the building adjacent to the one I worked at. I thought Zac might have glanced over his shoulder one last time, but I wasn’t positive since he ended up in the middle of his friends, or whoever the hell they were.
Turning around, telling myself not to expect shit, I found Deepa standing in the same spot she’d been in at the juice bar, her lips parted.
And in front of her, there was a regular member I recognized doing the same thing.
It was him who asked, “You know Zac Travis?”
And it was Deepa who asked, “How do you know Zac Travis?”
Well, I’d walked right into that shit. I headed back over to the front desk before my luck ran out and Gunner reappeared. “We grew up together.” Or at least as together as two people with a seven-year age gap could grow up together.
Luckily—kind of—the same door that Zac had walked through opened, and we both instantly tried to look busy. I picked up the work phone and glanced down at the list Gunner had given me, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Deepa drop to her haunches and make it seem like she was looking through a shelf. For what, I had no idea, but she looked busy, and it took everything inside of me not to make a face.
I knew she was going to load me up with questions later.
“I understand,” I started saying into the receiver even though there was no one on the other end. “Thank you so much for your time. I hope you keep Maio House in mind if you ever move back.”
Man, I was good.
And lucky, because just as I finished my bullshit spiel, I spotted Gunner in my peripheral vision, stopping just in front of the desk the second I set the phone back down into the cradle.
The jerk knocked on the counter, and it took a lot of patience not to roll my eyes and instead look at him blankly. “How are the calls going?”
“Fine.” I kept my face even. “Do you need something?”
“Can you stay late today?”
“No, I can’t.”
His jaw moved to the side a little. “There’s no way?”
“No.” He’d offered me a full-time position right after people had started quitting, and I had told him it was a hard no for me. Because it was.
His jaw moved a little more. “You know, it’s really unfortunate that you can never seem to stay late when you’re needed,” the jerkface tried to say, picking at my mood, and blatantly ignoring the fact that I had stayed late recently.
Just not on days he asked.
“I stayed an hour late yesterday and three days ago….” I trailed off, calling him an asshole with my eyeballs.
“What good does that do me today?”
And folks wondered what drove nice, normal people to first degree murder.
I had always been a team player, but he was such a pain in the ass, I just couldn’t find it in me to do him a solid. The two days I stayed late had been after he’d already been gone, otherwise I would have said no to that too. The new assistant manager, who had been hired after everyone else quit, was an all right guy, but none of us had any confidence in him protecting us from Gunner’s wrath.
Then again, it wasn’t my problem that they hadn’t hired enough new people. I’d seen some come in to interview, and I wasn’t sure why hardly any of them came back. Or maybe they had sensed the evil in him and not accepted the positions they’d gone in for.