Diligence by Brown Jay Leigh

Author:Brown, Jay Leigh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Stay Wild Publishing, Inc.
Published: 2023-10-26T00:00:00+00:00

Penn

My phone dings, alerting me that my thirty-minute sprint is done. Stretching, I lean back in my chair, my arms overhead with my fingers spread, as my jaw practically unhinges to accommodate the yawn that accompanies my contortion. I wrote about three words before I started staring out of the window, allowing the heat of the midday sun to warm me into a drowsy complacency. My watch tells me it’s quarter after two. I’m done for the day. I haven’t set a publishing date for this book, so I'm under no pressure to finish it.

My brows crease when I realize how completely silent the house is.

I can’t remember the last time the house was so quiet. I pick up my phone and shoot a text to the group.

Master of Words: Where the hell is everyone? It’s so quiet I can’t think.

Someone raps on my bedroom door and pushes it open just as I’m hitting send. Flip grins as his phone goes off. “That you?”

“Yeah.” I grab my pack of cigarettes and fire one up.

“It is too quiet,” he says, glancing at his phone and wrinkling his nose. “Tora is going to bitch when she smells that.”

“She’d have to be here to do that. Any clue where she is?” I exhale a plume of smoke in the direction of the open window. I’ll fire up my air purifier when I’m done even though I hate the fucking thing. It makes the air smell like bleach, but Blaire has weird germophobe issues, so I tolerate the fucking thing.

Flip shrugs. “She said something about stopping by her dad’s.” He pauses while leaning against the door. “Can I come in?”

My face twists in confusion. “Since when do you ask? What’s up?”

He flops down on my bed. “I’m worried about how long the club is going to be closed.”

“Me too. Tora worked so hard. Losing her clientele will kill her, but she’ll rebuild. We’ll rebuild,” he says in a lackluster tone. I can’t decide if he’s just tired of repeating the sentiment or if he doesn’t believe it and doesn’t have the heart to try and act like he does anymore. I take another drag and watch as he sighs and picks at a loose thread on my quilt.

“Oh. Really? That’s what you’re worried about right now?” I prepare myself for him to blow up at my snotty comment, and then feel like shit when he slumps in defeat. I flick my cigarette out of the window and sit down next to him. “Are you worried because you haven’t looked at the accounts, or is this some animal brain, Freudian thing about not providing? Be honest, Flip.”

“I understand we are a family, and we all contribute. It’s hard to accept that what I deposit into our accounts is less than the rest of you. Now that the club is closed, I don’t have a paycheck,” he admits. Finally, a little more truth and a lot less bullshit.

I nod, lips pursed, knowing I must choose my words carefully.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.