She’s really fucking not.”
I nod. “Exactly but she’s also full of fucking secrets. You need to get them outta her, give her your patch, get her safe in our club and away from that other family of hers. Pure and simple, she’s yours and no one else’s.”
Rue scratches at the shadow on his cheek. “Did Angel tell you anything about them?”
“No. But I’ll be asking her about them the second I’m sure she believes we don’t want her dead.”
Chapter Thirty One
Angel
I wake up on the couch after my first night in my own house and two things filter into my head as I lie there looking at the morning sun filtering through the cracked and broken blinds on the living room window.
I love my house more than any woman really should love such a thing, and I’m fairly certain my ribs were bruised and not broken because I can breathe with only discomfort and not agonizing pain.
I’m sure after the day I’m planning that shit will change but I’m glad to take a minute and just lie around, looking at all of the cracks I’ll need to fill and the mud that’s still on the floor.
Eventually, I get up and eat a candy bar for breakfast.
It’s not a great choice but I chase it with an energy drink and suddenly I’m ready to get to work on… fuck, something. Anything. Any part of this house that I can get to without needing an extra set of hands.
I start caulking up all of the cracks in the walls and ceiling.
Raising my arms above my head does start to feel like I’m going to fucking die but it doesn’t take too long to get every room done. One of the many advantages of such a tiny house.
While I wait for that to set I run to the store and grab paint. This place needs some fucking love. I’m living here, on my own, until I die. There’s nowhere else I ever want to be now that I’ve found friends and a little house of my own, so I need it to look exactly how I want it to. Even if that means painting everything myself.
I want it all white.
I want it to look bright and clean. I want it to look as though I know what the hell I’m doing, eighteen and owning something like this. It’s only a one bedroom, one bath little place, nothing to write home about, but fuck. I’m so goddamn proud of it, so proud that I have a tiny house on a street that isn’t the worst in town, and I fucking own it.
I need a fence.
Someday, I’m going to get a dog to keep me company. I’m going to plant a vegetable garden, maybe put in some fruit trees, and I’ll plant flowers everywhere. I’m going to get a real job at an accounting firm in the next town over and I’ll live a fucking life.
I just need to paint the walls first.
I keep myself so fucking busy that I don’t think about Tomi at all. Okay, that’s a lie. I think about him a lot without actually trying. The confrontation at the grocery store was fucking weird and the fact that both him and Rue were just heading past and saw me.
I’m grateful as hell they were there though. No way was I getting the couch in by myself. It’s a big one, it takes up most of the living room and there’s a section that folds out into a bed. I knew I had to pick between a couch or a bed because I could only fit one in the Chevy and with Poe declaring she’d be here every day after school I needed somewhere for her to sit.
So I manage to get a layer of paint on the walls in the living room before she knocks on my door. I’m too busy trying to figure out how the fuck I’m going to paint the ceiling to realize she’s not alone when I open the door.
I come face to face with Trink.
Oh God.
I must look shocked and maybe a little horrified standing there in my paint splattered shirt and jean shorts older than I am, thrifted from some shitty flea market a few states over.
Poe nudges Trink and Tomi’s sister huffs just like he does. “Quit it, Graves, I’m getting there.”
She clears her throat and sort of rolls her shoulders back and I’m a little shocked at what comes out of her mouth.