Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 129986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129986 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Aubrey
The hateful alarm blares from my nightstand, disrupting my lovely dreams.
Blearily, I reach for it, but I’m startled to find a barrier keeping me from moving freely.
I look down and see Dare’s arm still wrapped snugly around my waist.
My eyes widen as I look at the window and verify it is, in fact, morning.
Oh my god, he spent the whole night!
I hope Mom isn’t awake. I don’t know how I’ll get him out of here if she is.
He grumbles in my ear, “Smash that fucking thing.”
I crack a smile and reach for it. He loosens his grip so I can get my finger on the button to turn it off.
I can’t believe it’s morning. I can’t believe he slept over. We must have just fallen asleep. I’m sure he didn’t mean to.
I look back at him over my shoulder. My tummy sinks seeing how beautiful he looks, sleepy and disheveled in the morning. “I guess we fell asleep. You’re not going to get in trouble, are you?”
He shakes his head dismissively, “Nah, my dad doesn’t care if I’m home or not. Doubt he noticed.”
My lips tug down sympathetically and I roll over, rearranging my covers so I can curl up beside him and rest my hand on his tummy. “You and your dad aren’t close, huh?”
“Not really. He’s a dick and so am I. We butt heads.”
I crack a smile, absently caressing him. “You’re not a dick.”
He smirks over at me. “That’s the post-orgasm high talking.”
I roll my eyes. “No, it isn’t. I slept that off.”
“Mm-hmm,” he murmurs, unconvinced as he rubs my arm. “How’d you sleep?”
“Very, very well. You?”
“Same.”
I sigh, resting my head on his bicep. “I dreamed I got to take Mom to Italy. I think she was still sick, I could feel it hanging over us like a reality I couldn’t shake, but it was still a nice dream.”
“I take it you’ve never been?”
“No. She always wanted to. She planned a trip there with a guy she was seeing before my dad, but I guess they broke up before it happened. When my mom and dad got married, they planned to honeymoon in Rome, but then she found out she was pregnant with me. They didn’t have the money for a vacation and a baby, so they skipped the honeymoon altogether, and they never found the money to go after that.”
“You should go now,” he says, like it’s just that easy. Like we can just take a trip to Italy because we feel like it.
I crack a smile. We lead such different lives.
“We can’t,” I tell him. “Mom can’t risk getting sick on the plane ride over. Planes creep her out ever since her diagnosis. So many people, so many germs. If she gets sick, it could kill her, and that’s obviously a pretty high-stakes risk to take. As much as I’d love to take her on her dream vacation, even if I could afford to, I just can’t, unfortunately. I’d never forgive myself if something happened to her because of it.”
“Would you even be able to do anything once you were there?”
“If we could teleport?” I ask lightly. “Yeah, sure, there’s stuff we could do. We’re fine outdoors, as long as we can keep our distance a bit. We have to be more diligent if we go somewhere indoors. If I hear a cough or a sniffle, we’re out of there. But in Italy I know they have a lot of sidewalk cafes, so I think there’s a lot of stuff we could do that would be perfectly safe. Most of the stuff she wants to do. It’s just a pipe dream because we can’t get there. It’s not like you can drive to Italy. I’ve been trying to recreate the experience here at home,” I say, peeking up at him to see if he thinks I’m a total nerd. “I make her a lot of Italian food, and we’ll watch movies with a lot of great shots of Italy. I’ve done that with other places, too, but Italy was her bucket list trip. That’s the one she really wanted to do. I’m sad it’s my fault she never got to. She should have just taken the vacation and I could have slept on the floor or something,” I joke.
He smiles down at me. “I like that. Are you going to teach me an Italian dish?”
“If you want me to.”
“What are you making for dinner tonight?”
“I don’t know. I have to see what I have the groceries for. I’ve been a hermit the past couple of days. We need a lot of stuff.”
“Send me a list,” he says. “I’ll take care of it. Include whatever you need for whatever you want to teach me to make. I’m coming over for dinner tonight. We can cook together and I’ll meet your mom.”