Total pages in book: 63
Estimated words: 60487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60487 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 302(@200wpm)___ 242(@250wpm)___ 202(@300wpm)
“What’s that?” A bakery would totally be the type of job Carl would gravitate towards.
“You’re Jason Lyall, right? Piano genius? The one all the mums want their sons to turn out like?”
Jason. Genius.
Carl sighed and dropped his head, which might have looked like a nod because it received a delighted squeal. “I knew it. From the pics they posted of your latest concert-album.”
“Oh wait—”
She clapped her hands as Leo pulled at her elbow to remind her that he was there and he still had an ouchy. She stepped back, staring at Carl with big, awed eyes. And those eyes. Not gonna lie. They tickled his pulse. To be looked at like that. Adored. It was a pleasant kind of feeling. Quite addictive, he could imagine.
“Please, please,” she said. “We have our Street Greet tomorrow evening, the mums will be amazed if I got you to come. Would you?”
Of course he wouldn’t.
Would he?
Early the following morning, Carl was still debating this. He shook his wet hair, fresh from a shower, and opened Jason’s wardrobe. A couple of lonely shelves in the corner held all his comfy jeans, soft t-shirts, and the softer flannel that he liked to throw over them. The rest of the space was filled with pressed suits, coats with long tails, casual-fancy blazers, skinny jeans and skinnier t-shirts.
Jeez. Yeah, even the wardrobe looked accomplished.
He picked out a button-up shirt, a tie, and a waistcoat which shared a hanger with the matching pants. He held up the shirt against his damp chest. Good thing about this twin business. All this would fit.
What if . . . what if—until he headed back home—he pretended he was successful? He had this dreamy villa, these fancy suits, expensive wines. The grand piano and the manicured backyard. He could be Jason while Jason was being Carl. Carl was good at the Kiwi accent, too. He could totally pull it off. Live as if all this were really his.
Carl shook his head violently and stuffed the outfit away. Silliness. Jason posing as Carl in the lead-up to his ex’s wedding was understandable. It addressed Carl’s broken heart and gave Jason the chance to meet his biological family. Play-acting to make himself feel like he had a bright future—a bright present—full of big boulevards and no dead ends . . . might be indulging himself a bit.
He stuffed on his own jeans and his flannel hoodie, grabbed the red jacket and Toto, and emerged into a dark, dewy morning. It was five a.m., and honestly, Carl loved being up this early. In Aussie he was up at four-thirty most mornings. Nothing compared to the quiet that came with this time. The freshness of the air. The first calls of birds.
He followed still-bright lampposts down to the shops and Over The Raindough, the only building glowing with life.
He rapped against the door and peered through the glass. The form of a figure came around a counter, but was obscured by the partially fogged glass, and—
The door snicked and whooshed open. His bike saviour, in charcoal jeans, a grey t-shirt, and—most prominently—a flour-dusted apron the colour and shine of tinfoil. Dark hair sat behind a dark net, and darker eyes glinted under short lashes. The corner of his mouth twitched as if in spite of itself. “No Trouble Boy.” He looked at all the red Carl carried. “Easy enough to find me?”
“It was . . . no trouble.” Carl winced.
Berhampore’s-Supposed-Heartbreaker-and-Carl’s-Bike-Rescuer folded his arms. “What prompted a pre-dawn delivery?”
There was something about the way he said it that implied Carl was acting like a love-struck stalker. Like he’d felt the echo of the sharp, low shiver Carl experienced upon seeing him. Well, the guy could get that idea out of his mind asap! Those shivers were out of his control. Physical only. Automatic response.
There was only one reason he was here. “Like they say. The early bird—” Carl went to set the bundle on the table inside to avoid all that dusty flour—and be done with the visit—but his foot hit the raised threshold and he tripped violently, tackling his rescuer to the floor. Whoosh, another few bolts of out-of-his-control electricity. The helmet and jacket flew across the timber boards and they ended up a sprawled tangle of limbs. Both expelled shocked puffs of air; Carl slammed his eyes shut as he peeled his cheek off his rescuer’s groin. “—catches the worm,” he finished on a mortified whimper.
His rescuer let out a short, sharp laugh at this, and tried to sit up as Carl attempted to extricate himself—
Their foreheads met with a resounding smack, and they toppled back to the floor, lips parting—and clashing—as they groaned . . .
They froze, suspended in the shock of tingling skin and the drizzle of released breath. Dark eyes hit Carl’s and the long limbs under him shifted.