Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 118459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 474(@250wpm)___ 395(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 118459 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 592(@200wpm)___ 474(@250wpm)___ 395(@300wpm)
“Stop it.” His tone gives little room for argument. “I’ve got it.”
“No, Crew. I’ll pay it this week.” I don’t want to argue about this. Honestly, I don’t want to give two thoughts to the damn water bill right now. I don’t even have the money to pay for it, but I’ve figured these things out before. Maybe Mr. Ficht will give me a small loan.
“Damn it, Jules. You have enough to fucking worry about. Stop fighting things that you don’t have to fight.”
“These things are my fight. They aren’t yours.”
“How can you fucking say that to me?” Even he blanches a little at the level of his voice. He shakes his head, his voice quieter. “How can you act like this isn’t my fight? Huh? Fucking explain that to me, Julia.”
I swallow hard and try to remember why. Everything is blurring together. “We aren’t your responsibility, Crew. I don’t want your pity. I don’t want to burden you with my problems.”
“Pity? Is that what you think this is? You think you aren’t my responsibility?”
“We aren’t, Crew,” I all but whisper. “I’m your brother’s widow, the mother of your niece. You have no obligation to us.” I look him in the eye and force a swallow past the lump in my throat. “And I can’t have you be a part of our life and leave us, too. Especially not now.”
“What are you even talking about?”
“You walk away when everything gets hard. You walked away from me once. You walked away from your mom when she was sick. You walked away from your responsibilities and good judgments and look where that got Gage. I just . . . I can’t count on you, Crew. I can’t. This isn’t my heart or water bill on the line. This is very seriously our lives in the balance now. You have a way of barreling into people’s lives and taking over and then just going and not caring how it affects them. And right now, I have to be completely focused on Ever and not worrying about when you’ll leave. You’d crush her if you left her now, more than normal.”
“You’re saying you think I don’t care about you two?” He looks at me in disgust and my heart drops.
“I know you care about Ever. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that I have to protect her from you in case you take off. Her life is so unstable already.”
“Protect her from me? Damn, Jules. Give me a little credit here, won’t ya?”
“Crew, I’m sorry. I just . . . I’m overwhelmed right now. I’m just so completely overwhelmed right now.”
“Don’t you know I care about you, too?”
“I’m recalling a conversation from the park where you made it very clear you don’t do anything for me. And that’s fine. But I have a lot on my plate right now that I need to deal with. Things just got really serious here and I . . .” I hiccup back a sob.
His chin dips and he swears under his breath. “Jules, I didn’t mean that. I was just pissed.”
“It doesn’t change the truth behind it.”
“There is no fucking truth behind it,” he says defiantly, taking a step towards me. “You’ve always been something to me. Don’t you see that?”
“Yeah, sure. I saw how much of ‘something’ I was to you the day you came home after months of being in Minnesota and you just walked away. Again.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You know what? That doesn’t even matter. We haven’t talked about it in years; there’s no reason to talk about it now.” I hear Ever cough in her room and my breath catches in my throat. “Especially now,” I whisper.
He watches me intently, his eyes searching my soul.
“Call me if you need anything. When you need something, I should say.” He walks to the door and opens it but stops one last time. “But just consider for one fucking second. Leaving you and going back to Minnesota was me telling you how much I cared about you. And that, Julia, has never fucking changed.”
I watch the door shut behind him.
FOURTEEN
CREW
The chains bounce with each hit.
I drive my fists into the heavy bag suspended to the ceiling of my garage from every angle. I rip into it, knuckles kissing the leather, making the bag pop with every strike.
“Ah,” I growl, glancing my elbow across the stiff leather. The sweat from my skin causes my arm to slide across the bag, leaving a glistening trail behind.
I stop, out of breath, and glance at the clock. I’ve been at this for a solid hour.
I heave air into my lungs and feel the lactic acid in my arms and thighs. I need my brain to concentrate on that and not on what Julia had to say.