Total pages in book: 135
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129027 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 645(@200wpm)___ 516(@250wpm)___ 430(@300wpm)
I’ve been drifting on the wind for a goddamn decade, and I’m finally trying to really plant myself somewhere. To grow something real. Something solid. If I screw it up by fucking my first client, then I’m gonna stay nothing for the rest of my life.
This feels like it—my one chance to break out of the funk I’ve been in since Afghanistan. I’ve got a brief burst of give a shit, and I don’t know what happens if I don’t make something of it. I suspect it’ll be what happens to all the other vets I know—I’ll just sink. I seen it happen time and time again. Guys working aimless, dead-end jobs and treating their women bad cause they’re such miserable fucks. Guys who start drinking and just don’t stop. Guys who end up in an early grave cause they sent themselves there when the demons got too loud.
Enlisting was supposed to be my way out of the system. I was too young and too dumb to realize I was still just part of a machine that wanted to pulverize and churn me out like ground meat.
After one of the bad nightmares, I don’t generally sleep the rest of the night, and tonight’s not gonna be any different. Laying here with a warm, sumptuous woman half on top of me and her sweet-smelling curls driving me half mad isn’t going to help.
I slink out from under her and head back into the shower. I wanna wash off the last of the nightmare sweats and take care of the morning wood that started to get a bit out of hand the more she nuzzled and sighed against my chest.
By the time I get out of my extra-long, extra hot shower, it’s morning and she’s in a robe, glaring at me.
“Did you leave any hot water for the rest of us? You sure were taking your sweet time. I’ve had to pee!”
“Well, honey, you should have let yourself right on in. The more, the merrier.” I hold my arms out wide.
“Did your shirt fall out a window or something? You seem incapable of putting it on your actual body.”
I grin. “I like to air dry the way God intended.”
“Ugh. Well, you better be finished air drying by the time I get out of the shower because I have class this morning.”
“Aww, does this mean I’ll finally get to step foot on a college campus? I always dreamed about that.”
“You’ve never been to college?” She looks genuinely shocked. Kids these days.
“I was a little busy fighting in a war.”
“But weren’t you doing that as part of, like, the GI Bill? So you could go to college when you got back?”
I crack a grin at her. “Maybe I just really like shooting guns at strangers.”
She glares at me. “Be serious.”
“Why? It’s so much more fun fucking with you.”
She shakes her head, muttering under her breath as she waltzes past me to the bathroom. The door slams behind her, and I hear the lock click.
I’d be offended but I’m more glad she’s taking her safety seriously. Although she did just sleep with a man she didn’t know last night. At least I came with references from trusted friends.
Still.
I knock on the bathroom door.
Still in her robe, she opens the door. “What?” she barks, glaring angrily at me even though it’s barely seven in the morning. Doesn’t take much to get her riled, does it?
“Where’s your cell phone? I wanna see the disturbing messages your friends were talking about.”
“Oh.” She blinks like she wasn’t ready for anything but a fight. “It’s over there, plugged in by my nightstand. The code’s 4602.”
“Who else knows the code?”
“No one.”
“You told me pretty easily.”
She tilts her head, eyes deadpan. “You’re literally my security.”
“You shouldn’t be so trusting.”
“I’ll remember that.” She slams the door again.
I smile, walk over to grab her phone, sit in the overly plush chair, and punch in her code. I wonder if it means anything to her. Usually, people put in a year that’s sentimental to them, like their mother’s birth year or the year they graduated high school.
I’m glad Kira’s smarter than that.
Notifications immediately start popping up, and the smile dies on my face as I read the texts pouring in from different, unknown numbers.
UNKNOWN: You sure are pretty when you scream.
UNKNOWN: Who the fuck is that with you?
UNKNOWN: Did you bring him home to fuck, you whore?
UNKNOWN: I’ll kill you, slut.
UNKNOWN: What’s his name, slut?
UNKNOWN: Did he take you back to his house, fucking whore?
UNKNOWN: I’m going to gut you like a pig if you fuck him.
UNKNOWN: You’re such a fucking slut.
On and on, the threats and insults continue. My muscles are tense by the time I’ve scrolled through them. Several contain picture attachments, which are blocked, thank god, but still.
I look toward the bathroom door and hear the gentle noise of the continuous spray. Is this what she wakes up to every morning, or is this just because of what happened last night?