AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Easy.” He steadied himself and downed his caffeine. “Hey, you coming down to party tonight?”
Scrunching my nose, I already gave away my mixed feelings. “Party? Don’t think so.”
“Oh, come on!”
“Nope, and don’t try to persuade me.” I pointed my index finger at him. “I just moved in. I still need some space and time to adjust.”
He grabbed my wrist and pretended to bite the tip of my finger. “But if you change your mind—”
“I won’t,” I deadpanned.
“Fine,” he dragged the word and went to stand. “But if you do—”
“Which I won’t.”
“God, you’re a hard-ass.”
“Not really. Rather a wiggly ass,” I corrected him, and he nodded with a lazy smile.
“And we men are fucking fine with that.” He bent down to pick up his bag and said goodbye. “See ya, sis.”
I drank the rest of my coffee in silence, finding serenity with my thoughts while I checked out the view. Endless land with trees that needed to be trimmed. The lawn boy would come in handy today.
Mm, maybe I should try the egg swing again. Sniffing up some fresh cut grass while I watched the cute lawn boy didn’t seem so bad.
But when I settled into the swing, the only cute thing about the afternoon was the color I painted my toenails with and how he mentioned that. He was a retired gardener and fervent collector of paper airplanes.
At least, I’d partly lost my fear of the swing.
7
ARES
It had been a long day at the sanctuary. Someone brought in three snakes yesterday. Three. One had been in a fairly good shape; the other two were still pretty roughed up.
Boiling inside, I remembered wanting to slap the dude holding a cardboard box that was way too small for the pythons. Clearly, there were still people who thought it was cool to keep one, and then dump it since they didn’t know what to do with it, leaving them injured or close to death. It was pathetic.
I exhaled a sigh. I dreaded that part of my job. I didn’t do weekends that often. Usually there were coworkers specifically working those days. But today had been an exception. I couldn’t resist going to check up on newcomers. Most of my rage I’d shed off after I took one look at them this morning, when two of them were doing fine. The third still needed a lot more attention.
Committed as I was, I’d turned a camera onto them, which was connected to my phone. I could monitor my babies at any time of the day.
I could still use a beer or two, though.
As I stepped into the entryway of our house—well, technically it was still Cary’s mansion—the earthy scent of weed invaded my nostrils. Techno music played and I checked Spotify on my phone, hovering over the button at the “moods” section to pry my way into our surround system and switch it off. Deciding against being the usual asshole, my mood plummeted a little more as I stepped further into the living room.
People scurried around, opening up for me as they noticed the scowl on my face.
It meant murder.
“Hey!” I yelled at the dude lining up on the coffee table. “Get that shit out of my house!”
I’d seen enough drugs in the span of my existence to absolutely despise them.
A joint? Fine. Cocaine? A deathly trigger.
I’d witnessed more episodes during my childhood of passed out musicians than I cared to remember. It was not funny having a twelve-year-old calling 9-1-1 because the guitarist—fucking Cary—was choking in his own vomit while the rest of the band was too out of it. As if he hadn’t learned from it, he not only went into rehab right after, but relapsed three years ago and fucked Mia Zakharov. The only girlfriend I’d ever wanted to address like that. The girlfriend who had only used me to get into my father’s pants.
What was equally pathetic was the saddest amount of blow on the coffee table.
