Page 50 of Instant Bond

I would get everything sent to Anthony as soon as possible to make sure that Lucas was out of their lives once and for all.

CAM

“YEAH, AND THENhe just whipped it out. Like, I didn’t even ask or say that I wanted to, he pretty much just pulled it out and pointed to it like he was telling me to get to work.” Hana’s voice made her repulsion with the behavior of the guy she’d gone on a date with the night before very apparent.

“Gross. Alphas can be so disgusting.”

Balancing my phone on my shoulder with the side of my face, I dug down into the bottom of the last box I needed to unpack. We’d been at Karter’s for nearly a week now, and I’d been unpacking here and there when I had time. Luckily, he hadn’t complained or rushed me about cluttering up his apartment.

Some of our stuff was staying in boxes in storage, like dishes and the few pieces of furniture we had, but the rest was out and fully functional. Karter had bought another dresser for his room for me to put my clothes in, something I hadn’t been able to do in forever. It was funny the gestures that made me swoon these days.

“Ugh, I know. I have the worst luck with dating. Every guy I go out with turns out to be such a massive tool,” she complained. “And then there’syou,” she said, her voice changing to mock accusation. “I cannotbelieveyou moved into Karter freaking Morrison’s apartment!”

“Yeah, I know,” I said, glad she couldn’t see my blush over the phone as I threw away the garbage that had somehow made its way into the box.

“You literally told me you guys were just barely getting to know each other and then bam, you hit me over the head with that!”

“Well, I didn’t want to jinx anything by talking about it,” I said honestly, walking across the apartment to place a stack of Ty’s books on the shelf in his room. But the truth was all out now. She knew Ty and I lived here now, and that things had gotten kind of serious between Karter and I. “And it all happened kind of fast.”

“When are you going to bring him out?” She whined. “I totally want to have dinner or something with you guys.”

“Well, it’s kind of hard since you’re the only other person I know that could watch Ty while we do that.”

She sighed exasperatedly. “Fine.”

“We’ll figure something out,” I promised. “I’m sure Karter wouldn’t mind if you came over and had dinner here some night.”

“Seriously?” She practically squealed in my ear. I kept forgetting she was his fan or whatever.

“I’ll ask him and let you know,” I said.

“Do you think he’d watch Ty so you and I could go out shopping or something? I feel like we haven’t gotten to hang out other than at work in forever.”

“Um, I’m pretty sure he would, yeah. They get along great.”

“So cute! He is totally your new baby daddy.”

“Hana, come on. Don’t say that.”

“What? It sounds like he’s pretty ready for the whole stepdad thing.”

“I don’t want to force anything like that on him.”

“Force him?” She laughed. “He’s pretty much begging you for it.”

“Yeah, but…” I trailed off as I pulled the last item from the box, a folded piece of paper. When I unfolded it, I realized it wasthe eviction notice I’d gotten and kept, just in case. “We haven’t really talked about it yet.”

“Well, I’m calling it now,” she said. “You guys are totally getting married and he is definitely going to be Ty’s stepdad.”

I blushed again, glancing over at Karter’s closed bedroom door, where he was doing some office work from home. I was pretty sure he couldn’t hear me.

“Well… I’ll let you know,” I said. Something strange had just occurred to me as I’d skimmed the notice for what felt like the 500th time. “I have to go, we’re getting ready to get lunch. I’ll let you know about shopping, okay?”

“Okay! Talk to you later.”

I hung up the phone, lowering it to the carpet beside me as I frowned. I’d never thought about it before, I’d been too stressed out, but I’d never heard of the company that had issued it. And what were they even demolishing it for? To put a business right there in the middle of a residential neighborhood? A new apartment building that no one would be able to afford, and anyone that could wouldn’t want to be smack dab in the middle of the low income part of the district?

I picked my phone back up, typing in the name of the business so I could at least try to understand what they did. It took a bit of scrolling and clicking around on random links, but eventually I figured out it was a small subsidiary owned by a larger business called Cromwell Corp. I knew that name, Cromwell. But I couldn’t remember where. Before I could try and find out, Karter emerged from the bedroom, stretching a bit as he walked out. When he raised his arms over his head, his shirt slipped up to show a strip of his abs. So much for concentrating on anything.

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