Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 123155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 616(@200wpm)___ 493(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
“Postpartum bleeding is no joke,” she huffed, her cheeks a little pink.
“You could’ve just used the diapers,” I joked. “They look about the same size.”
Cecilia scoffed, but she was trying not to smile.
“You push something the size of her out the end of your penis and then you can give me shit about the size of my pads, alright?” she said, grabbing her wallet out of the cart.
My hand instinctively went to my junk and she grinned.
“I was telling your man that babies grow so fast that if he blinks, he’ll miss it,” the checker told Cecilia while she paid.
“That’s what my mom always said,” Cecilia murmured, shooting her a smile.
“Sometimes, truth is universal,” the checker said knowingly. “Have a good night.”
“You, too.”
As we walked toward the front door, Cecilia pulled a baby blanket out of the cart and ripped off the tags so she could wrap the baby in it.
“I forgot a toothbrush,” she said just as we reached the truck. She glanced behind us. “I could run back in—”
“I’ve got an extra at the house you can use,” I said, setting the car seat box on the ground and using my pocket knife to open it. “She’s going to burst the blood vessels in her face if you don’t feed her soon.”
“Good point,” she said, doing the bouncing side step thing again.
“Climb in the front,” I said, opening the door for her. “Feed her while I get this shit inside and get her seat set up.”
“Are you sure?”
“Or we can both stand out here while she screams and then listen to her the entire way back to the house,” I said over the baby’s cries.
“Right.”
The sound of the baby’s cries were muted through the window of the truck and it didn’t take long before they stopped altogether. As I pulled out the plastic and foam surrounding the car seat, I wondered how the hell Cecilia had gotten herself mixed up in a home invasion and homicide. None of it made sense. She didn’t live in the mansion we’d found her in, but she’d been hiding in the nursery. From what I understood, and I assumed Cecilia would have mentioned it, we hadn’t left a child behind. Had she been staying there? That didn’t really make sense, either—people didn’t fully furnish a nursery for their friend’s kid. And who the hell were those people, anyway? Friends, maybe, but not the type I would have pictured Cecilia hanging out with. They were fancy wine and dinner parties, and unless things had changed a hell of a lot, Cecilia was more of a good beer and bonfires type.
I jerked my head up as she opened the door again and turned to sit sideways, her feet braced on the edge of the floorboard.
“Thank you,” she said. “Again. I swear, by the end of this, I’ll owe you so much that I’ll never be able to repay you.”
“You don’t owe me shit,” I countered as I worked on the seat. I grimaced as thoughts of just how she could repay me flashed in my mind. Jesus, I was an asshole.
“I don’t know what I would’ve done if you guys hadn’t shown up,” she said quietly.
“He was leavin’ when we got there,” I reminded her. “You would’ve been okay.”
“Maybe.” She was silent for a while. “I probably would’ve been trapped in that closet until my parents got there tomorrow. I wouldn’t have taken the chance to get out.”
“Yeah, you would’ve.”
“No,” she said, letting out a humorless laugh. “I wouldn’t have. I would have stayed in there like a scared little frozen rabbit, too afraid to move.”
The words were familiar, but it took me a minute to place where I’d heard them before. When I remembered, it felt like I’d been punched in the gut.
“Cec,” I said, straightening up to look at her.
“You know it’s true,” she said with a shrug.
“It wasn’t true then, and it isn’t true now,” I replied firmly. How many times had we had this conversation? A hundred? A thousand? How many times had I argued that she wasn’t a fucking coward for taking cover when she was being shot at? That she’d done exactly the right thing?
“Thank you,” she said again.
“Stop fuckin’ thankin’ me,” I snapped, the words sounding different after I knew where her head was at.
“None of this feels real,” she said after a moment. “I know at some point it’s going to hit me, but I don’t think it has yet.”
“That’s normal,” I replied, opening the back door so I could install the seat. “Shock’s a funny thing.”
“You think I’m in shock?” she asked.
“You’ve been through a lot tonight,” I said. Why the hell did they make these things so hard to fucking install? “Hopefully, that shit won’t sink in until you’ve got your people around you to carry some of the weight.”