Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 75240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75240 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Starting to pace, I lifted my hands up and ran my fingers through my hair, halting my forward progress to work out a knot when my fingers became tangled.
“That wasn’t very nice,” my brother said as he followed me into the room and flopped down on my bed.
“I’m naked,” I snapped at him.
“You’re wearing a sports bra and jeans. You’re wearing more right now than when you go to the beach every summer.” He rolled over and sighed. “Will you let me stay over here and sleep for a couple hours? Maybe tell Mandy that you need my help for something?”
The pleading in his voice made me want to grin.
I didn’t dare.
Then he’d think I’d agreed to his stupid plan.
“Mandy is at home with your three-month-old twins,” I told my rotten brother. “She deserves to have you home helping instead of taking a nap at my place.”
He growled.
“You knew what you were getting when you decided to have a baby,” I poked him with a finger, and he grunted.
Pushing him over with my fist, I ripped my shirt out from underneath his body and shrugged it on.
“Why do you persist in wearing that ugly shirt?” he asked, squinting one eye open to look at me.
I slipped the shirt on over my sports bra—that did in fact cover half of my body since the damn thing had to be industrial strength due to the bounciness of my boobs—and dropped down onto the bed beside him.
“He looked at me like I was a freak.”
“You are a freak,” he countered.
I dropped my elbow into his back and grinded down.
“Owww!” he yelled. “Fuck! Stop!”
I grinned and let up on him.
My brother didn’t fight back and he never would.
He was about twice our size and could easily hurt us if he wasn’t careful— something that he’d learned the hard way when he’d pushed me off of him, and I went flying into a table and had broken a rib. He hasn’t tried to retaliate against our attacks since.
“He saw it all when he came to the shop,” I said. “But I don’t think his eyes ever made it past my boobs.”
“Yeah, hard to miss those puppies,” he shot back sarcastically.
I smacked his head.
He laughed.
“Fuck, I don’t want to go home,” he groaned into the pillow. “Your bed’s so much nicer than mine, too.”
“That’s because it doesn’t have baby throw up on it,” I teased.
He groaned and pushed himself up.
“Let me know if you need anything,” he sighed. “I’m going home to baby hell.”
I snickered as he walked out of my house, but the smile quickly died from my face as I remembered the look on Bowe’s face when he saw my scars.
There weren’t a lot of them, per se, but the ones that were there were quite ugly.
That’s what happens when you’re shot by a fucking nail gun and they had to do an exploratory surgery to find all the nails.
Shivering at where my thoughts were leading, I got up from where I’d sat on the bed and headed in the direction of my computer.
Apparently, I needed to look for a new car.
***
The next day dawned bright and early.
Knowing I would be walking to work today, I got dressed in my running clothes, stuffing my scrubs and a change of panties into my bag along with my lunch. Elise was at my brother’s house since I had to leave so early this morning, and I couldn’t help a pang of sadness that I wouldn’t get to see her.
I was making pretty good time, set to arrive at the hospital in eleven minutes if I kept the same pace I was setting when I heard a loud, angry horn blast behind me, causing me to jump a foot and shriek.
I gasped and placed my hand over my heart, turning to find Bowe leaning his entire body out of the open window of the fire truck while laughing his ass off.
“Dammit! I’m so sorry!” he yelled through the open window of the fire truck. “I was cleaning the steering wheel, I swear.”
Rolling my eyes, I started to move again without replying, instead focusing on the sidewalk in front of me instead of the man that was staring at me like I was fucked up.
I hated when men looked at me like that. Not that I really had many look at me like that. I have been too busy to date lately.
Inevitably they’d always ask why I had those scars, even if they just saw me working out at the gym and then that would lead to telling them about my psychotic ex-boyfriend who thought it’d be better to kill me rather than let me see someone else.
Then I’d have to tell them that I really was all right, and that I wasn’t a fucked-up mess like some people would be, had they been in my situation.