Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 77841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77841 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 389(@200wpm)___ 311(@250wpm)___ 259(@300wpm)
My phone rings on the counter. Once again, it's Hollis calling. I don't know why I pick up. I've ignored every single phone call since that time I met him and Nash on the beach. I open my mouth to tell him to fuck off, to quit acting like a sorority sister who needs advice, but then Raya walks in fully nude, her skin still wet in spots she didn't reach with her towel while drying off. My mouth waters to lick those droplets from her skin.
She asked for clothes a while back and as much as the thought of her covering her body annoyed me, I laid out a t-shirt and a pair of sweats one day while she was in the shower. That's where they've sat since. I don't think she wanted the clothes. It was clear she was just trying to determine whether I’d provide them or not.
“I can’t fucking talk right now,” I growl into the phone, my eyes never leaving Raya. She looks at me, her head shaking, and she mouths, it's fine. I don't know why I stay on the phone with him, but a lot of it has to do with the fact that she distracts me anytime we're in the same room. Hell, she distracts me when she's in the other room. Raya Reed is nothing but a distraction and I find myself enjoying not focusing on anything but her.
“What's got you so fucking busy that you've been avoiding my calls?” Hollis snaps as if he has any right to confront me. As if he's some jealous boyfriend wanting to know my whereabouts and what I'm doing.
“You sound like a needy bitch,” I grumble as I move to the fridge to grab the mayo. “I’m building a deck. I don't have time for your shit,” I lie.
“I can help build a deck,” Hollis offers. Hollis is still working under the assumption that we live close by. That my house is just a short car ride from the beach we met on. I know that's where Hollis lives. Neither he nor Nash are as secretive about their lives. But they do what they do for fun, for the thrill of it. They haven't suffered things like I have. They don't have that insistent need to be alone because alone is safe.
“I don't need some gimp-ass bitch slowing me down,” I say.
“I’m not a gimp anymore,” Hollis says. “The cast is already off.”
I take a step back when Raya reaches for the mayo in my hand. We're always keeping that distance between the two of us. I watch as she makes our sandwiches, grinning at how awkward her actions and movements are. She may not have been put in the position to make her own meals before, but she's never been unwilling to help.
“You took your own fucking cast off?”
“No, the doctor took it off,” Hollis explains. “I was completely healed.”
“You must have superpowers then. You still had three weeks last time I saw you like ten days ago.”
“Ten days?” Hollis says. “You fucking idiot. It’s been three and a half weeks since we were at the beach. Have you been high this entire time or something?”
Floored that it's actually been that long all I can manage is a nod. High… that's a good way to explain it. I know I've ordered groceries several times, more often than I normally would, but I just chalk that up to Raya being here and eating more food. Three and a half weeks?
“Listen, asshole, I'm busy,” I say, getting ready to hang up the phone.
“And I'm fucking calling because, for some reason, Angel can't find you.”
“Angel isn't looking for me,” I argue. The man doesn't need me or him or Nash.
“Check your email, you dumbass.” That motherfucker has the nerve to hang up on me.
“A friend of yours?” Raya asks as a piece of turkey dangles between her fingers. I don't answer her as she finishes the sandwich. She turns to face me, questions in her eyes at the silence.
“You didn't yell for help,” I realize out loud.
Her brow furrows. “And risk someone as deranged as you, knowing I'm here?” She gives me a look that says she thinks I'm an idiot before lifting the butter knife to her mouth to lick the mustard off of it. She tosses it in the sink. The metal making a clanking sound simply because she knows it annoys the shit out of me.
I don't say a word as she holds up a plate in front of me. On it is possibly the ugliest fucking sandwich I've ever seen in my life. But I also realize the importance of it. She made me food without being prompted and this may be the first thing she's ever given me besides too many orgasms to count. And all of those are offered without touching.