Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
The top of the paper read Potential Employment Opportunities. It was a short list that contained a random smattering of everything from restaurants to scrapyards.
I turned in my seat and looked at the side of his face. “Blink once if you want me to drive you to all these places so you can apply for a job even though I said I’d give you one. Blink twice if you’re a robot from the future sent back in time to save our world.”
His lips thinned and I leaned toward him, making a show of watching his eyes.
I jumped back when his head suddenly turned my way.
“I don’t want to fucking be here with you,” he growled. “But thanks to you and Nora and your stupid games, I don’t exactly have a choice in the matter. I don’t want to work for you, Thea. I don’t want to live in the same house with you. I don’t want to fucking talk to you. So quit with the goddamn jokes and just drive. The sooner I can find a job, the sooner this nightmare can be over.”
Hurt swirled in my stomach, but I didn’t let it show. “See, now I’m not sure what to do. You blinked three times.”
He stared at me, angry and unimpressed. But while he was doing it…he blinked.
“Oh, okay. There we go. One blink.” I straightened in my seat and got busy putting my seat belt on. “You had me worried there for a second. Though I’m kind of disappointed. I’ve never chauffeured a robot before.”
Before we pulled out of the parking lot in order to start the impossible felon job hunt, I sent one last text to Nora.
Me: Plan worked perfectly. He told me to take my job and shove it. Initiating Part B of Gainful Employment.
We drove around for hours. Most places didn’t even give Ramsey the chance to mention the part about being a felon before the door was slammed in his face. Clovert was a small town. Someone had to die, retire, or move for there to be a job opening. Not to mention that people remembered when Josh had been killed. And they definitely hadn’t forgotten that it was Ramsey who had done it.
I drove him out to a few of the places that were closer to our house in Thomaston, hoping he could gain some anonymity, but the dejected look on his face each time he walked back to the SUV told me it wasn’t helping.
We went to a drive-thru for lunch. I feared it was going to go as well as it had at the restaurant the day before, but Ramsey had no problem leaning over me to order.
“Two number fours with a Coke and a large chocolate shake.”
We sat in the car and ate.
He didn’t talk.
I did.
He didn’t reply.
I pretended not to notice.
I smiled a lot that afternoon.
He scowled pretty much the entire time.
It was still the best day I’d had in over twelve years.
Deflated and exhausted, Ramsey gave up the job search around five o’clock. He signaled this to me with a grunted, “I’m done.”
I was sure he was expecting me to drive him home so he could lock himself in the bedroom with Nora again. Instead, I took him to meet his new boss.
Yep. I’d been well aware that he was never going to take that job from me. Not in a million years. Probably not even if it meant breaking his parole and going back. But there was no way he was going to be able to turn down Joe Hull.
“What the fuck,” he breathed as we pulled into a parking spot in front of my dad’s barbershop.
My dad loved Ramsey. Yes, he wished that that night hadn’t ended with a dead body, but he wasn’t all that heartbroken that it had been Josh Caskey after hearing what he’d done to me. Seriously, sometimes I thought my dad loved Ramsey more than he loved me. Okay, not totally true. But it felt like that when I was in the middle of a fit of rage, huffing and puffing about how Ramsey had abandoned me, and my dad would jump in and defend him. His favorite line was, “I’m sure he has his reasons.” It was like my dad wasn’t on my side at all.
Ramsey had written my dad two letters from prison—yep. Two. For accounting clarification, that would be one more than he’d sent to me. I’d snuck into my dad’s room to read the first one. It was filled with profuse gratitude, thanking my dad for taking Nora in. He’d hidden the second one from me though. I assumed it contained the same message since it had been received shortly after Nora had graduated college.
Ramsey “hated” me. Yes. Those are air quotes. But he respected my father. He owed him a debt of gratitude, and I was banking on the fact that even though he was a cranky prick, Ramsey wouldn’t be able to withstand one of Joe’s good ol’ guilt trips.