Into the Gloaming by Mercy Celeste

Author:Mercy Celeste
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
ISBN: 9781945444159
Publisher: MJC Press
Published: 2020-06-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Nine

On the Ninth day of Christmas, my true love…

Was nowhere to be found.

The snow had stopped the following morning when Austin dragged himself out of his misery cave. The sun was out in force. He blinked, wondering for what seemed like an interminable moment what that brilliant light in the sky was. He wasn’t hungover. Maybe just a little. He’d stopped drinking sometime around nine yesterday morning and passed out. His phone rang so many times he almost threw it against a wall before he remembered he could mute the damn thing.

So, he muted the thing. And slept through three or four attempts to break his door down before he answered the phone and told them to all go fuck themselves.

He had to go to work on Wednesday. There was no choice in that. Or he could find his boss and tender his resignation and be packed and out of the state in a couple of hours. Well, three. Okay, four. It was a long drive to another state from where they were out here in the middle of nowhere Georgia.

The ground was still covered in white as he made his way carefully through the courtyard, picking out cobblestones that were in the sun and no longer covered in ice to hopscotch across.

Opening the back door, the sound of Uptown Funk blasting from somewhere in the back, he swiped his good hand over his face. He should have shaved. He just didn’t feel like it. And it wasn’t like he had to be clean-shaven to keep the job. Maybe he would grow a beard. Maybe he’d grow his hair out. Maybe he’d go live in the mountains and shout at people to get off his land or he’d blow ‘em to smithereens.

He felt like blowing something to smithereens.

The coffee pot was still mostly full when he got to his office.

“There’s a box of pastry from Cup O’ Joe in the workroom.” He heard Jemma shout from somewhere in the house. He muttered something in reply, his stomach growling louder than his grumblings. He hadn’t eaten much since New Year’s Eve.

A doughnut would be good.

He filled his mug and dragged his oversized wool coat off and hung it on the rack by his office door. He pulled up the sleeve of the old sweatshirt he’d butchered to fit over his cast and started his computer. He didn’t feel like talking to anyone. He had paperwork to do. He had a work schedule to make for the grand opening in two days. He had to figure out what he was going to do when the three interns went back to school in a couple of weeks.

He didn’t think about Rory.

Or he tried not to think about Rory. He knew Rory slept with women. He knew Rory would sleep with more than one person at a time. He knew Rory would sleep with men and women at the same time. Rory’s sex life had never been an issue. Rory’s sex life wasn’t an issue now.

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