Doin' a Dime, Vale, Lynn [top young adult novels TXT] 📗

computer room looks like it was constructed out of love and care. The rest of the house pales in comparison. But, lucky you, I was able to have it all tuned up by your friend, Mordy, just last week.”

I grinned wickedly, and her face went slack with shock.

Or worry.

“What?” The grin fell off my face.

She shook herself free of her blank stare.

“Nothing.” She smiled tightly. “I’ll order pizza. You go get your shower and head into the Bat Cave. I’ll let you know when the food is here.”

I winked at her. “Thanks.”

With that, I headed to the shower.

It was quick.

I was in and out in under five minutes—I learned not to linger in the showers because that invited touch—and was dressed in sweatpants and nothing else two seconds later as I went to my computer room.

I pushed the door open and felt something lift off of my chest at the sight in front of me.

“Do you want something to drink?” Wyett hollered from the kitchen just as I stepped foot inside.

I looked all around me before answering. “Whatever you happen to have that’s cold, I’ll gladly take.”

Then I dove in.

CHAPTER 9

Anything you can do, I can do better. Unless it’s whoring. Then you win hands down.

-Text from Wyett to Six

WYETT

They hated me.

Absolutely, no doubt about it, detested me.

I should’ve known that they would hate me based solely on the fact that I was showing up married to the baby prodigal son.

It hadn’t all started out bad, of course.

When we’d first walked into the mini-mansion on the lake, I’d been worried because of Hunt.

He hadn’t looked like he’d wanted to be there at all.

That was, I think, why I hadn’t pushed him about seeing his family over the last two weeks since he’d been home.

Then again, every time he said he was thinking about going the next day, I’d had to work.

So it’d been a very good excuse not to go.

The only problem was, the longer his mother knew that he was out, the more persistent she became in demanding that he come.

Now, there we were two weeks after he’d gotten home, and I was spending the entire day with him.

It was nerve-wracking.

I’d done my level best to stay out of his hair over the last two weeks, going out of my way to make sure that I didn’t bother him in any way.

At first, I thought it was going to be hard, but then I realized that it wasn’t hard at all because he was always in one of two places. His room, or his office.

He didn’t come hang out in the living room, which was where I liked to spend my time reading, studying, or watching television.

He didn’t go to the kitchen unless it was to throw away his trash or grab a quick bite to eat, and even then he always took his food back to his office.

Honestly, it was quite comfortable being where I was with him home.

I had the ability to talk to him—because he seriously didn’t mind when I came to talk to him about random stuff I’d remembered he should probably get taken care of—but I also had the ability to just be by myself. Which was what I really liked.

Being by myself had always been my default setting.

The funny thing was, I hadn’t realized how worried I’d been about losing my freedom to do that until I’d realized that I still had it.

The thought of marriage or dating had never really been a big deal to me.

I’d always liked the idea of independence.

That was why, I think, I allowed myself to get married to Hunt the way that I did.

I had the best of both worlds. I was married to an attractive man, and he left me alone.

Though, lately, seeing him walking around in his incredibly tight sweatpants was beginning to really work my nerves.

And definitely not in a bad way.

“Oh, good!” his mother said as she opened the door. “You’re here!”

She leaned forward to hug Hunt, and he tensed, his eyes squeezing shut as if he would rather not touch her.

I frowned.

That was another thing that I’d come to understand over the last couple of weeks. His aversion to touch.

It’d all started out when we’d gone to the DMV to get his driver’s license. The lady had handed him his new ID, and he’d asked her to put it on the counter so he didn’t get near her hand when he’d reached for it.

Then it’d been a checker in a grocery store trying to hand him cash. Again, they had to place it on the counter before he would touch it.

It was little things, here and there, where he avoided touch in any and all ways possible.

In fact, I hadn’t witnessed him purposefully touching anyone over the last two weeks but me.

His mother squeezed him hard, and a look of panic crossed over his face.

Instinctively, I reached forward and held out my hands. “Hello, I’m Wyett.”

The woman let go of her son so abruptly that I would’ve laughed had this been the least bit funny.

She whirled around and stared at me as if I’d startled her. Except I’d been standing beside Hunt the entire time, in plain view. So it shouldn’t have been a surprise at all.

“Who are you?” she barked.

My brows rose, and I was about to say my name again when Hunt said simply, “This is my wife, Wyett.”

Her mouth all but fell open.

“What?” she shrieked.

“My wife, Wyett,” Hunt repeated as if that was seriously why she said what.

It wasn’t.

But he answered her as if it was anyway.

“A wife? What? How?” his mother continued to shriek in a very loud, very pissed off voice.

“A wife,” Hunt confirmed. “We’ve actually been married for years now. We celebrate our fourth anniversary soon.”

Soon as in five months. But I was sure that he was embellishing, so they didn’t think that we started dating while he was in prison.

Though it wasn’t while he was in prison, it sure wasn’t by much. Hours,