Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 74078 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74078 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 370(@200wpm)___ 296(@250wpm)___ 247(@300wpm)
Hell, even Josie herself stood out in the goth-chic look of the office. From her nearly one-hundred-percent Irish heritage, she was almost ghostly pale with some charming freckles. Today, she had another of her sundresses on, which she practically lived in, because she claimed ‘They’re effortless, but make it look like you are all done up.’ This one was a light blue with white flowers which only made her deep blue eyes pop.
She was so freaking pretty.
I’d put good money on her being able to find that happily-ever-after of hers if she would just… leave the house once in a while.
“Tell me again how pretty he was,” she implored, giving me a girlish smile.
I was pretty sure that neither of us had ever had close girlfriends before. Me, because, well, my whole all-halloween-all-the-time and rough-around-the-edges personality just didn’t fit in with the cliques in my schools. Josie, because she apparently went through an extremely painfully awkward stage. Head-gear and all. That, paired with her innate shyness, and it seemed like she was just as on her own as I’d been growing up.
So after we’d gotten over the initial awkward phase, she and I had started to cling to each other the way teen girls do. Like a lifeline. Sharing all the details about our lives.
She knew how my cherry got popped on the hood of my ex-boyfriend’s brother’s car in an act of revenge for being cheated on.
I knew that she’d held onto her v-card until the morning before her twenty-second birthday, and that she’d done it out of desperation with her neighbor across the hall who was a world-renowned manwhore who she knew would fuck her in a heartbeat. My words, not hers.
Unfortunately for her, the dude got all weird afterward when he realized she was a virgin, and did everything in his power to avoid her in the halls and parking lot since.
That had been going on for a year.
Which probably gave the poor girl a complex about it.
Honestly, I didn’t think she’d been with anyone since, but I didn’t press about it. I could see that being a sore spot after such an awkward first encounter.
Sure, my initiation into sex had been for revenge, but I’d made the right decision by giving it to the older brother who actually knew what he was doing and gave me a good O before the actual act. Not too shabby for a first time.
She lived vicariously through her romance smutty scenes and my very detailed accounts of my own sexcapades.
“Oh, God, Josie, he was so fucking pretty,” I said, letting out a little sigh at the memory of him, then taking a long sip of my soda until it slurped and I sucked in a ninety-percent water mix that had my nose wrinkling.
“Green eyes, you said, right?” she asked, smiling wistfully.
“Gorgeous green eyes. And when they’re looking at you like a meal he wants to eat?” I said, letting out a dramatic sigh. “It’s a shame he had to be a one-and-done, because I could have turned that into a couple-month-long royal fuckathon, and been a blissfully happy woman.”
“Hey, maybe you will run into him again one day!” she said, ever the optimist. And you had to love her for it. Even if Miami was home to almost half a million people. The chances of running into your neighbor on the street were slim, let alone some dude you fucked once.
The statistics were wholly against it.
Still, though, it seemed Josie’s wish would come true just a few days later.
CHAPTER FIVE
Cato
“Eddie, we could have just picked up some hot dogs or something,” Riff insisted as Eddie came walking toward us on the beach, dragging a giant-ass cooler behind him.
He was in a pair of green board shorts with a yellow and white bowling shirt on top, shades, and flip-flops that kicked sand up with each step.
Levee and the guys had followed the club girls to the beach. Then we’d stayed after they headed back home because, well, the beach was full of other chicks.
Levee and Raff were off playing volleyball with some of them right now. Alaric was taking a run beside a woman doing the same, the two of them striking up a conversation as they went.
Leaving just me and Riff with all our shit.
Me, because I was uncharacteristically disinterested in spending my time chasing women. And Raff because he likely felt bad leaving me alone.
“Beach cart hot dogs?” Eddie asked, looking downright offended. “Not on my watch. I got homemade subs, wraps, and sandwiches. Cole slaw, pickles, chips, everything we could need,” he told us as he flipped the lid open.
“Why are there so many sunblock tubes in here?” Riff asked, brows pinching.
“‘Cause they’re not sunblock,” he said with a smirk.
They were Eddie’s special liquor-hiding system.
“But if the cops ask, we’re just super concerned about skin cancer, man,” Eddie added, hunkering down, and grabbing himself a sandwich. “So, what’s the plan for tonight? Clubs then crashing at Teddy’s?”