Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
So there I was, bored out of my fucking mind, starving, and poking at my newfound wrinkles in the bathroom mirror, when I heard a knock at my door.
“Ramsey?”
I froze, my eyes locked on the mirror, panic staring back at me.
Thea.
Jesus. I needed to find somewhere else to live.
Leaning out of the bathroom, I stared at the door. If I was super quiet, maybe she’d think I was still asleep and go the hell away.
When I didn’t reply, she knocked again. Her voice was timid and sweet, not at all like the fearless girl I’d grown up with. I fucking hated it.
“Ramsey? You hungry? I’m making breakfast? I was wondering if you wanted something?” Everything from my name to the fact that she was making breakfast was a question, as if maybe she was asking permission to cook in her own damn house.
My stomach was currently feasting on my backbone. Still, I said nothing.
She sighed. “Okay. Well, if you change your—” There were several seconds of silence.
I quirked my eyebrow at the door, trying to figure out why she’d abruptly stopped talking, and then cursed my inability to develop x-ray vision.
I held my breath, hoping to hear her footsteps as she walked away.
No. Such. Fucking. Luck.
The door swung open and she came walking inside with her hands stacked over her eyes. “Look, I know you’re awake. I heard you running earlier. I also heard you take at least three showers. Sorry, but the house isn’t that big. Neither is the hot water heater. Are you at least dressed so I can open my eyes?”
Brave. Unapologetic. And completely oblivious to boundaries. Now that was the Thea I knew.
“Get out,” I barked.
“Dressed? Not dressed? Help me out here?”
“Get. Out.”
She kept her eyes closed. “You gotta eat, Ramsey. You can’t stay locked up in this room forever.”
I wanted to tell her to get the hell out again. Honestly, it was on the tip of my tongue. But it never made it past my lips because my traitorous eyes stole a head-to-toe of her lithe body. She was barefoot, wearing jeans—tight ones that tapered at her ankle. They looked like mine in the sense that they had a rip in the knee. They didn’t look like mine in the sense that they hugged the curve of her hips and more than likely her ass too. A pink tank top stretched across her chest, and I swear on my life, fuck x-ray vision because I could see the pebble of her nipples beneath the fabric.
It wasn’t a ridiculous dress.
It wasn’t stupid fucking heels.
She wasn’t wearing a face full of clown makeup.
She was just Thea.
The nostalgia pumped through my veins like acid even as my cock stirred. Fuck, I should have jerked off again in the shower.
“I’m dressed,” I bit out, desperate for her to put her damn hands down and maybe use them to cover her tits instead.
Her long, brown lashes fluttered as she opened her eyes. Those fucking eyes had once owned me. As a huge smile lit her face, I felt the claim all over again.
“Oh, look, you chose one of the outfits I picked out for you.”
Of course I had. Of fucking course. As soon as I got her out of my room, I was going to take the outfit off and light it on fire.
I ground my teeth. “Where’s Nora?”
“She had an emergency at work and had to go in about an hour ago. I’m supposed to take you to meet your parole officer and then take you shopping to get whatever you need that we might have forgotten.” She smiled. Well, she smiled wider. She had already been fucking smiling to begin with.
“What the hell kind of a work emergency can a first-grade teacher have?”
She shrugged. “Ran out of glue? Dripped the blue paint in the white? Substitute used permanent markers on the dry erase board?” She shrugged again. “Take your pick.”
“Or maybe she was trying to force me to spend time with you when she knew good and damn well I can’t miss this meeting with my PO, so I’ll have no choice but to let you drive me there.”
She blinked all innocent and sweet. “Or that.”
“Right,” I muttered, gripping the back of my neck and wishing I could snap it to put myself out of this misery once and for all. “What are you playing at here, Thea? You think if we spend the day together, I’m going to suddenly realize I can’t live without you and drop to a knee and propose?”
I waited for her to cower. Maybe burst into tears like she had outside the prison. She’d come at me with some shit after I’d thrown the gum in the trash, but it had been for show. She wasn’t the only one who could eavesdrop. I’d heard her puking in the bathroom not two minutes later.