Total pages in book: 169
Estimated words: 162138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 540(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 162138 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 811(@200wpm)___ 649(@250wpm)___ 540(@300wpm)
I remember that day. We’d stayed in, made pasta, and watched Pocahontas. I got offended when I finally understood her John Smith reference, and she’d laughed and laughed. Fuck. I can still hear that laugh in my head. I can still picture her face. I swallow hard, trying to find my words. When she told me she didn’t let her friends talk about me, I thought it was so she could try to forget me, but I guess I was wrong. Why the hell would she do this to herself? She’d have to look at these pictures every time she sat here. It has to hurt. It’s hurting me, and this is my first time seeing them. When I look at her, she’s looking down the hall.
“Why?” My voice is so quiet, I’m not even sure she hears it.
She looks at me, her eyes searching mine like she’s trying to find something that she’s not sure is there. I wish I knew what she was looking for so I could just fucking give it to her.
After the longest moment, she finally speaks. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
She turns and walks out. An ache settles in my chest, the minute she’s gone. I look at the pictures again. I have to go through with my plan. I will go through with it, but fuck, this is more difficult than I thought.
When we get to her place, we take turns getting ready. We don’t speak. I know she’s brooding as much as I am. And she’s probably hangry, which is the worst, and probably the only time her bitchiness doesn’t turn me on. She has to be starving, by now. I’m fucking starving, and I had two full meals on the field and a 40oz smoothie at Marissa’s. She had a huge protein smoothie too, but she was too active today for that to be enough. Because of our mutual silent treatment, I’m not sure where we’re going or how to dress, but this city doesn’t seem very pretentious. The men probably wear fishing shirts to dinner and shit. I end up wearing a black v-neck t-shirt and dark jeans.
I check Lyla out for the fifth time. She’s wearing a short black romper. A really short black romper. Jesus. She can wear whatever she wants, but I don’t know how I’m supposed to keep myself in check. As it is, I haven’t been able to stop replaying how she looked when she came on my fingers. How she felt.
“What’s the plan?” I ask as I comb my fingers through my damp hair.
She stares at the movement. Nothing in her expression changes, but I see the longing in her beautiful eyes. I almost pick her up and kiss her right there. I deserve at least three gold medals by now for the amount of restraint I’m showing.
“Burgers,” she says simply, as she puts on some black sandals and looks in the mirror.
I bite my tongue to keep from saying anything, but I can’t stop staring at the bottom of her romper. It’s loose enough that I could push it to the side and fuck her with it on. I need to stop messing around and stay on track before she derails this train. I know I do, but she drives me fucking crazy. She turns to see how she looks from the back. She’s perfect. I don’t even know why she bothers triple-checking. I put on my sneakers and follow her out, staring at her ass the entire walk to the elevator, and picturing all the things I want to do to her.
“How’d you find this place?” I ask as we walk down the block.
I have to admit, it’s a nice city. It’s not Chicago or New York, but it’s nice. I can tell it’s booming, with the amount of people our age who live here. It’s clean and everyone seems nice. Some of them are a little too nice.
“A travel magazine.”
I stop walking.
She notices and turns around. “What?”
“A travel magazine?”
“We were in California and I already knew the only way I could get away was to change my name and location, so we skimmed through a travel magazine. We instantly fell in love with it, and it was within driving distance of one of the universities that accepted me into their program, so we moved.” She shrugs.
I start walking again. “I’m assuming by ‘we,’ you mean you and Marissa.”
“Yep.”
I fight the annoyance building inside me. I know she did what she felt she had to do, but what the fuck? A travel magazine? That’s absurd. This entire thing is absurd. I’m not going to say it, since this is the first normal conversation we’ve had since I arrived. Even though she’s hangry, she’s not giving me clipped answers. She actually seems. . .cordial. I have to say, seeing those pictures is fucking with my anger.