Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 111685 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111685 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
No clue what that meant, but again, the other two just nodded and said nothing else.
“You’re fidgeting.”
We were driving in his truck, and he was right. I kept playing with my hands, moving around in the seat. I was not comfortable, and I’d try to get comfortable and I just kept doing that. It was a whole cycle. Over and over again. Cursing, I stuffed my hand under my leg. I was about to do the same with my other hand, but Stone reached over. He grabbed my hand, laced our fingers, and threw me a smile. “Okay. Let’s not get hasty here.”
I laughed, and it was enough, just enough. No. It was perfect because it calmed some of the nerves.
We were driving to Acquiesce, a more upscale restaurant that bordered on a club. I’d heard about it. Stone mentioned it in passing, that we should go because we’d never been on an official date. I relayed the name of the place to Nicole, and she and Savannah went apeshit, claiming how prestigious the place was. Mia’d been walking through the living room, overheard our convo, and paused to give her two cents. “I’ve been there. It’s cool. They have dancers.” That’d been it. She kept moving, reminding me of the first time I met her and thinking she was a gazelle in human form. Her long legs striding forward, but moving as if she were delicately prancing. It worked for her. Me. I’d look like a goose trying to pretend it was a flamingo. Just couldn’t pull that one off.
But I was nervous because one, it was our first ‘out’ date together. People knew. Blogs knew. Half the male population on campus knew, and not because of me, because of their love for Stone. This was different, though. Felt different, more official, and I was sweating buckets. Hence, the fidgeting.
“What’s in your head?”
I tried to pull my hand from Stone, but he only tightened his grip and squeezed me back.
“Stone.”
“Tell me.”
He was swinging into the parking lot, and it was a circle drive-up thing. There was a line of cars in front of us, and they had valet. Stone was glancing around, making sure he didn’t have anything expensive laying out. Wasn’t supposed to happen with valet, but let’s be real. It happened. I just went right back to fidgeting and smoothed my hand down over my dress.
I was wearing a pink dress that Savannah insisted on. There was a sheer covering up my top, with green beading that made it look like I was wearing a fairytale garden. The bottom was pink tulle and she’d thrown on a long necklace of white beads at the last minute. I’d done away with the blue hair, and my hair was now dyed back to my dusty blonde color. I thought it was appropriate. It was up in half curls and a half braid. According to Mia, the only housemate who’d been to Acquiesce with Wyatt because they had dinner with his parents there, the dress was perfect. I wasn’t sure, or I hadn’t been until now. Stone was wearing a nice button-down shirt and nice jeans. He could’ve stepped off a yacht in Cannes and fit right in, but the couple in front of us got out of a fancy car and I settled even more. The woman had on a gold sparkling dress, top to bottom. Diamonds dripped down her neck, so yeah. I was probably underdressed.
“This place is a different level of fancy.”
It was our turn next, and he pulled up, but when the valet opened his door, Stone didn’t get out. He was watching me. “You don’t want to go here?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“It’s in your voice. I can tell.” He looked around, cursing, and motioned to the guy. “Sorry. Change of plans.”
“What are you doing?” I asked as the valet nodded and stepped back, helping Stone shut the door at the same time, and then we were moving forward, pulling back onto the highway.
“You don’t want to go there. I can tell. I’m sorry. Asked around. Everyone said to take you there, said all chicks would want to go there. I should’ve known. You’re different.” He sighed. “Thank fuck you are.”
I should protest, have him turn back, but he was right.
“Besides.” Stone threw me a wolfish grin. “Pretty sure we’d have our pictures sold to a gossip site.” He reached for my hand, our fingers sliding against each other. “Way you look, we would’ve been put up somewhere.”
The paparazzi buzz had settled, too. Mostly because we never went out. Stone didn’t have the time. If he wasn’t at practice or traveling for away games or at the stadium in meetings, he was watching tapes at home his place. We divided our nights. The nights before my early morning classes, we were at my place. All the other nights, we were at his, so I almost thought home—my home—but it wasn’t. And that was moving too fast. We weren’t there, but as his thumb started rubbing over the top of my hand, I started wondering if we were actually already there.