words chalked on the sidewalk speak for themselves.
I hadn’t had the heart to shatter the hopes of the sweetest fifteen-year-old kid I knew—who’d been through so much in the past year—by telling her that I didn’t write my books. I typed them. On the computer. The book I was supposed to be working on notwithstanding because I had yet to type shit on it—unless a bunch of drunken rambling counted. Which it didn’t. But the other fourteen I’d written over the last seven years had been written one keystroke at a time.
As I stared at the notebook, the clean white pages inside with their perfect blue lines called to me, urged me to grab that pen and…
What? What the hell was I supposed to do now?
As with everything else that had previously rattled around in my head, the journal stopped talking to me. Although that didn’t stop me from staring down at it. Surely I could take it from here, right?
Setting the coffee mug down, I snatched the journal, the pen, and my black hoodie and made my way to the door. Then, after turning back to get my shoes, keys, cell phone, and my wallet, I finally made it out into the hall and over to the elevator.
Once more, I turned back around, headed back into my condo, dropping my pile of crap back on the kitchen island.
I needed to shower first. No fucking way in hell I could go out in public smelling like … a brewery.
Chapter Six
Presley
My morning started with a trip over to Different by Design to give Charlie my keys since she had accidentally left hers at home and I lived closer, saving her an hour trip there and back. I spent a few minutes chatting with her while she smoked a cigarette and told me about the hot guy she’d met last night, before I had made it back to my condo on Fifth Street. Then, after a quick elevator ride up with an older woman and her little dog, I got out on the seventeenth floor, smiling back at them as they both glared at me suspiciously.
I didn’t think much of it, since I frequently got some strange looks. It was the tattoos, probably all the piercings, and maybe the pink hair that generally garnered me more attention than I needed, but I didn’t really give a shit. As I usually did, I shrugged it off.
I was who I was. No amount of beady eyeballs staring holes in me was going to change that.
When I stepped inside my condo, I ran smack into a wall of bacon. Well, the smell of bacon, anyway. Scrunching my nose, I pretended not to notice that Gil was making breakfast. Or rather, what he considered breakfast, which normally consisted of some strange concoction made from random shit he found in the refrigerator. The only consistent ingredient was bacon.
I pushed the hood off my head and peered around the open living area. It was relatively clean compared to what I’d witnessed last night. “Please tell me some half-naked chick is not gonna waltz out of your bedroom and make this uncomfortable,” I said, relocating my sketch pad from the bar to the stool.
Gil’s face lit up with a magnificent smile. His rusty-brown hair—shaved completely on the sides to show the many tattoos that decorated his head—was spiked on the top, as though he’d merely run a towel over it when he’d gotten out of the shower, which went with the disheveled theme accentuated by the two days’ worth of red-brown stubble on his jaw and the tattered T-shirt. “She left earlier.”
“She? As in not plural?” Last night there had definitely been more than one.
Another grin. “Gav took three of ’em, but I think he kicked ’em out before he crashed.”
Great.
At least they were gone. I couldn’t count how many times I’d come into the kitchen to find some petite little brunette—they were always petite, always brunette for Gil—rummaging through the refrigerator wearing one of Gil’s T-shirts and nothing else. Gavin wasn’t quite as bad because he frequently sent his packing before he went to bed. I’d only encountered one of his over the years.
“Did you get this one’s name, at least?” I asked, trying to sound as though I were joking. I wasn’t.
“Angie,” he said quickly.
I watched him closely, noticing his frown.
“No, wait. Amanda. Or was it Ashley? No… Shit.”
Gil had the decency to look sheepish when his dark brown eyes strayed back to me.