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)
What the fuck is that?
I reassemble my flashlight in two seconds. I shine the bright beam onto the gusting curtains.
If I stand up and go shift the curtains, it means I’ll need to peek out the window. And to peek out the window means there’s a good possibility paparazzi will snap a photo of me. Then I’ll draw hecklers to the area, and it’s been nice not hearing a bucket load of bullshit about me and Farrow tonight.
I listen for the noise again, but it’s quiet. So I check a missed text.
Shouldn’t you be asleep by now? What’s keeping you up? – Farrow
His absence.
Being alone with my own head.
My collarbone that refuses to heal at the speed of lightning.
All of the above.
Just can’t sleep. I send that text. And then I think about the lube ad, and I wonder…
I send him another message: I’m going to watch porn.
If he thinks it’s a bad idea, he’ll tell me. Maybe porn will exhaust me, and I can’t deny that ever since I started dating Farrow and he admitted to watching it, my curiosity has piqued.
Maybe I’ll see porn in a new way now that I’m in a committed relationship. I don’t know. My brows furrow in heavy contemplation.
I text back: never mind.
He’s calling me.
I knock my head back on the headboard. Fuck. Either I worried him or he’s pent-up now, and both options, I’m just feeling fan-fucking-tastic about.
I put the call on speakerphone. “I’m not trying to interrupt you at work—”
“You didn’t. Relax, wolf scout. I’m just charting in the on-call room.” Papers shuffle on his end. “You watching porn or not?”
“I don’t know yet.” I open an internet browser on my phone. “What’s a good site?”
He pauses. “Maximoff.” Somehow, his husky voice contains his forever-widening smile. “I’d love to watch it with you since it’s not something you do often, and I’m not saying this because I believe you shouldn’t do it alone. You can do it alone if you want, but it’d be more fun with me.” He adds, “Everything usually is. Even sleep apparently.”
I blink slowly. “Thank you for those unnecessary additions.”
“You’re welcome.” His voice fades with the shuffle of papers.
I think about experiencing this with him, and it’s more appealing. Maybe it’s what I really wanted all along. And I click into a “news headlines” tab on my browser.
Thwack. I swing my head.
“What was that?” Farrow asks.
“A noise,” I say dryly. With the constant stream of hecklers, it’s been more difficult to secure the outside of the townhouse lately. Someone could be chucking something at my window from the street. But rocks and pebbles sound more like pinging against glass.
Whatever hits the window is heavier, but not enough to shatter through.
“Shit,” Farrow curses, and I hear papers scatter.
“They make you chart on paper?” I ask. “I thought they would’ve moved onto some space-aged technology. Like astral projections.” Looking at my phone, my brows knot at an article series, not on Celebrity Crush but on its more reputable parent site and online magazine called Famous Now.
I pause before clicking into the articles. Farrow lets out a vexed breath, his stress or maybe just frustration ekes over the line. He’s great at living inside hectic situations, but whenever he calls me at the hospital, I feel this wound-up tension inside Farrow that he normally never carries around.
He won’t say much about his shifts there, but sometimes I think it’s worse when I press about it. So I haven’t really dug in yet.
“If you need to get back, we can talk later—”
“I have time,” Farrow interjects and finally answers me. “There’s an old attending in internal who refuses to move onto tablets, and since half the hospital thinks he’s Jesus, all Med-Peds first-years are required to chart on paper because this old fucker said so.”
My face twists. This sounds like a rule that Farrow would break. He’d consider tablets more practical and efficient to do better work, and he’d disobey the paper-only requirement, even at the cost of angering the staff and damaging his reputation.
It’s just who he is. Risking it all to do the best job he can.
“Why not just say fuck this rule and use a tablet?” I ask.
“I haven’t thought much about it,” Farrow says distantly.
Thwack. Thwack.
“Maximoff?” Concern deepens his voice.
“It’s just the wind.” I shine my flashlight at the creaking ceiling rafters, then down at the window. My curtains dance more madly, and I’m tempted to stand up and peer through the closed blinds.
“That’s not wind,” Farrow says. “Where are you?”
“Bedroom.” I balance my flashlight on my thigh. Keeping the beam aimed at the curtains. And I focus back on the internet and these daily articles on Famous Now.
Each one compiles all the public photos of Farrow and me. Some pictures are from my Instagram like a selfie at the grocery store. I mockingly flip off Farrow who’s smiling insanely wide behind me, also he’s biting into a nectarine. He was eating the fruit in the store, all before we checked out.