Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 41373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 207(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 138(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 207(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 138(@300wpm)
Damn.
Something inside me perked up.
Something like maybe he’s not so straight, after all.
I picked up my glass and stood up. “Deal.”
He cocked his head to one side. “If I win, though, you have to tell me why you’re sitting at the bar looking so sad tonight.”
Damn. Knew I looked desperate.
“Sad?” I protested. “Shit. I wasn’t trying to look sad. I was going for… friendly and mysterious and radiating charisma.”
He laughed, and the skin around his eyes crinkled up. “I see.”
“And hold on,” I said. “I get to say my terms, too. If I win the round, you have to… tell me your deepest, darkest secret.”
I expected pushback from him, but he just nodded. “Easy. Done. I’m Rowen, by the way.”
“I’m Shane,” I said. “And wait a minute. How is that easy? You want to share your deepest secret with a stranger?”
“No. Trust me, I don’t want to tell anyone my darkest secret,” he said, turning back to glance at me as he started to walk to the pool table. “I just know I’m going to win.”
2
ROWEN
He doesn’t know who I am.
Thank the fucking skies above.
That was the one great thing about hiding out in middle-of-nowhere, Tennessee: it wasn’t like New York City, where I’d seemed to carry a repelling cloud around me anywhere I went.
When it got really bad, near the end of my time there, people hated me just from reading my last name. I’d tried to get a coffee one morning, and when the barista had scanned my credit card, he’d had the balls to say across the counter: “Sorinelle? Rowen Sorinelle? Your family should be fucking ashamed of yourselves.”
Needless to say, I never got my cappuccino.
But that was my secret. A secret this guy Shane would never know.
I felt bad pool-sharking the poor guy, because he seemed nice enough and was clearly lonely tonight.
But it was very, very rare that I ever lost a game of pool. And one thing that wasn’t a secret about me was that I was always too curious about people.
I wanted to know why a tall, fit, pretty-boy jock was sitting at this bar alone, looking so sad. Shane looked more like he belonged on a soccer field or a farm, smiling and glistening under the golden sun.
Abercrombie type, as I used to call it in high school. An all-American Tennessee guy—nothing like the artists, writers, and self-professed proud freaks I used to hang out with in New York City. Shane seemed earnest. I knew if I won the bet, he’d probably even tell me the truth about why he was sad.
And blissfully, no one here in Tennessee had to know my secrets.
“This is an abomination,” I said as we approached the pool table. I pointed at the mini pumpkins and big, carved Jack-O-Lanterns still sitting on the shelves nearby. “Halloween was yesterday.”
Shane looked amused. “One day after Halloween is too long for you?”
“It’s outdated,” I said. “Christmas decorations should go up—”
“On November first,” he said, finishing my sentence.
I gave him a nod. “I knew I liked you.”
He cocked his head to one side as he grabbed a pool cue. “Liked me? Thought you said I looked sad.”
I shrugged. “Who says I don’t like sad?”
Shane seemed fine with that answer. He said nothing as he held my gaze for a moment, some quiet question behind his eyes. He reached for the knob of chalk, pushed it onto the end of the cue, and started in on some practice shots.
I knew he wasn’t trying to show off his biceps, but the practice shots really did a nice job of that. He racked the balls, putting the 8-ball at the center and then removing the triangle.
“Mind if I break?” he asked.
“Go for it,” I said.
Shane hit the white cue ball with a satisfying crack, scattering the rest of them all around the table. I took a sip of my drink as I watched him take his first shot, pocketing one ball and claiming stripes for himself.
He missed the next shot and turned to me, standing up straight again.
“What are you having?” he asked, nodding at my glass.
“Espresso martini,” I said.
“Fancy.”
“I got one as a joke one night in the city and now they’re all I ever want.”
Used to be my mom’s favorite, too, until she ended up behind bars.
No big deal.
Shane sat on one of the seats near the tall table where I was leaning. “The caffeine doesn’t keep you up all night?”
I shook my head. “I sleep okay.”
“Lucky,” he said.
Christ. I didn’t deserve to be in the same room as someone as sweet and earnest as Shane, let alone hang out with him.
I headed over to the pool table and was able to pocket three solids in a row. I wasn’t all that good at pool, but hanging out around pool tables in bars had become a pretty big part of my life living in New York. Turns out that when the callbacks for auditions stop coming in, you end up spending most of your time waiting tables or drinking.