Page 24 of Priest

September looked at me with drowsy, pretty brown eyes.

“Yeah,” she answered softly.

“I didn’t think it would take me that long.”

She nodded and turned her gaze back to the book.

“You wanna come out here?” I asked, jerking my thumb over my shoulder.

She sat up on the bed and set the book aside.

“Sure.”

I walked to where she stood and unchained her.

“You don’t have to keep me chained anymore, Priest. I’m not running.”

“Why is it when women open their mouths, nothing but lies spill out?”

“I’m sorry that your experience with women has left you with a misanthropic attitude that causes you to cast aspersions on my character because of how they treated you, but I’m not them.”

I scoffed, took a step back from her, and continued drying my hair.

“You think you’re excluded from that number?”

“I’ve not done anything to you, Priest.”

“First day, you tried running twice.”

“What the hell? Did you forget you kidnapped me? What sane woman wouldn’t run? If I stayed and gave in to your every whim, you would have distrusted that, too, am I right?”

“You’re right. That’s why I’m wondering why the change now?”

“I have one person in the world to trust, and that’s my best friend. You haven’t killed my ass yet, so that’s a start. I might as well make my time in captivity easy on us both.”

September followed me out of the room.

“Yeah, I guess.” I mumbled as I pulled out my phone to order pizza. There were only a few places that I ordered from. They knew that I didn’t trust people on my property, so they were careful about which delivery drivers they sent.

“You want some pizza?” I asked, scrolling through the app.

“Sure.”

“Preference?”

“I like veggie with a thin crust.”

I nodded, scrolled through the app, and checked off boxes for my order with one hand, as I dried my hair with the other hand.

“Here, let me do that for you,” September offered and stretched her hand toward me.

“Do what? Order the food?”

She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes.

“No. Because I suspect that you wouldn’t be cool with that shit anyway.”

“Nah, shorty. You’re right. I’m not about to trust you with my phone.”