Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 146548 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 733(@200wpm)___ 586(@250wpm)___ 488(@300wpm)
I can practically feel his eyes rolling before he laughs. And as the sound fades, the line goes quiet; the silence is like a raw, aching thread of longing.
“I miss you,” I admit out loud.
“I know you do,” Farrow says, like an ass.
I groan, but I’m not able to shelter a fucking smile. At least he can’t see it. “I meant I don’t miss you at all. I haven’t been thinking about you for even half a second.” It’s hard to even joke. It hurts.
“That’s too bad,” Farrow says. “Because I’ve missed you.” His words are tender like I can’t touch them. I shouldn’t. Voices muffle in the background on his side. Quickly, he tells me, “I need to go, but I should be finished here in thirty minutes. See you soon.”
See you soon.
“See you.”
We hang up. I refuse to look at my watch as a countdown to his arrival. I already catch myself doing it once.
And once is enough.
Luckily, a great distraction bounds through the entrance.
Sullivan arrives from the pool, wet brown hair soaking the shoulders of her jean jacket. “Fuck, sorry I’m late,” she apologizes to Jane. “I didn’t want to leave until I beat my morning time.”
“Butterfly?” Jack asks, panning the camera to Sulli.
“Backstroke today.” She claims the stool next to me, not flinching at the single camera. The FanCon tour helped ease her in. I’ve been on the docuseries since I was three-years-old, Jane since she was six, and for Sulli, this’ll be her first time. And she’s twenty.
I notice how Sulli watches Akara and Jack fist-bump into a hug in greeting, and she hangs her head and focuses on braiding her wet hair.
A few days ago in the Meadows treehouse, she told me about how Akara and Jack are becoming good friends, and she’s been feeling weird.
“I’m not sure why,” she explained to me, hugging a beaded pillow.
“Maybe you’re into him,” I speculated.
Sulli frowned. “Him, who?”
“Akara,” I said.
Sulli laughed. “No fucking way…Kits is like…” She stared up at the treehouse ceiling, handcrafted paper flowers cascading off wooden beams. “…he’s Kits.”
The way she said that reminded me of me. And how I couldn’t make sense of my feelings for Farrow and what he meant to me, in my life. I just knew he meant a whole hell of a lot.
“I think you’re into him, Sul,” I said.
“I’m fucking not.” She chucked a pillow at me, and when I threw it back, she repeated strongly, “I’m not, Mof. If I thought I was, I’d fucking tell you.”
I didn’t expect her denial. “What about Jack then?”
She frowned more and shook her head before groaning into the pillow. I rubbed her back, and we started talking about swimming.
At the speakeasy, I think about that moment in the treehouse. Especially as her bodyguard rests against the bar, out of the camera’s frame.
Akara tells Jack, “The time was Sulli’s personal best.”
My cousin ties the end of her braid. “It’s still too fucking slow, Kits. I couldn’t even qualify with that time.”
“But backstroke has never been your thing, Sul,” Akara reminds her. “It’s a good time.” He saunters around the camera and ends up standing beside Thatcher Moretti further down the bar.
And I spot my new bodyguard.
He’s been at a wooden table guarding the entrance. Sky-scraping tall, bulky, bald, bearded, and the former bodyguard to Loren Hale.
My dad requested that Bruno Bandoni be transferred to my detail. He told me, “You don’t need to deal with a new inexperienced bodyguard, bud. Take mine.”
Thanks to my dad, it’s been an easier transition. But there’ll be times where I search for my bodyguard. Expecting to see that widening know-it-all smile and the cocky raise of his brows.
Instead, I meet a stringent severe face, and the wind dies in my sails.
I turn to Sulli who stretches over the bar and snatches a cherry. “Why are you swimming backstroke?” I ask since she used the word qualify. She’s not competing anymore, so I’m confused.
“I need a goal,” Sulli tells me.
I go rigid. “What?”
Jane looks between us and pops an olive in a martini glass.
“Moffy—”
“You have a goal. The ultra,” I say toughly. “It’s been your goal for months, and that’s not fucking changing.” It’s not changing because of me.
Sulli bites the cherry off its stem. “The course can be fucking dangerous solo. It doesn’t feel like a good idea to do it alone, and my dad’s bad knee can’t handle the terrain—”
“Sulli, I’m running this marathon with you,” I say, adamant. Not backing down. “I’ve already started training.”
She coughs on a cherry. “What? You’re in a sling, Mof.”
Jane shakes her head at me like I’m a disaster to myself.
“I can do a lot in a sling.” I’ve spent most of my free time in a gym. My hamstrings and quads are sore from the nonstop leg days, but I’m strengthening every muscle until I can work on my right arm and shoulder. “And I ran a mile yesterday.”