Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 76695 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76695 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 307(@250wpm)___ 256(@300wpm)
So I knew what he wanted to hear.
The same things I’d needed to hear.
Those songs that broke your heart and somehow helped mend it at the same time.
“We were both horribly beaten,” I reminded Lexy. “We were resting on the couch at the same time.”
“Resting,” Lexy repeated, lips pressed together. I knew not to trust that look. “So… the kissing thing. Was that maybe some mild mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”
Damnit.
I didn’t think she’d seen.
She hadn’t acted like it.
And she was usually shitty at keeping things like that to herself if she had.
“Oh, my God. You did make out!” she said, mouth falling open.
Oh, this fucker.
She’d laid a trap.
And I’d waltzed my stupid ass right into it.
Sometimes it was really annoying to have your sister as your best friend. They knew you too fucking well.
“Ugh,” I grumbled, getting up from the table to refill my coffee.
The migraine had turned to more of an ever-present headache now. It was infinitely more tolerable. Even the sun coming in the windows didn’t feel like icepicks to the brain anymore. I thought that with some decent food in my stomach, and as always, more caffeine, I might start feeling somewhat human again, and less like a human impersonation of a punching bag.
“You guys would be so cute together,” Lottie declared. She was a dog with a bone. It was going to be a long day.
“Shouldn’t you be at work?” I asked, hoping to throw her off topic.
“You know my boss will give me off whenever I want,” she said, brushing it off as only the boss’s favorite could.
She was right, though. Sam would give her off for an entire week if she wanted. Hell, he would even pay her for it. You know, because he was madly in love with her and all. Then again, who wasn’t?
“He’s super hot, you know.”
“Your boss?” I asked, trying once more.
“Finn,” she said as she smushed a bite of a muffin before bringing it to her mouth. It’s crumbly if you don’t smush it! “I heard he’s a loner and allergic to fun. So, you know, you two are clearly meant to be,” she teased.
“Ha ha,” I drawled.
“Okay, but, like, why won’t you give it a shot?” she asked. “You’re clearly attracted to him, or he would be walking away with one less testicle for trying to kiss you.”
“Bad boys are your thing, Lot, not mine.”
“I’m starting to wonder if boys in general are your thing at all,” Lottie said. “I mean, how long has it been? At least—“
“Don’t do that math. I’m begging you.”
“Oh, God. Has it been two years?” she asked, eyes huge.
“No,” I said. But at her raised brows, I relented. “A year and eleven months,” I admitted. A summer fling with a musician I met at the studio. All fun and nothing else. Neither of us wanted more.
“You must be single-handedly keeping the battery company in business.”
“Maybe I just don’t have any interest.”
“Libido is partially genetic,” she told me, grinning. “And my libido…”
“I don’t need to know this,” I said in a pained voice.
“Oh, come on. You were the first person to know when I got my cherry popped.”
That was true. She’d been sixteen. And he’d been a complete dickhead to her afterward. He may or may not have woken up to three slashed tires the next morning. It would have been four and a broken windshield if the damn nosy neighbors hadn’t come out before I got around to that.
“We don’t keep sexual secrets.”
“You don’t,” I clarified.
“You tell me things!”
That was true enough to not need a rebuttal.
“So, what’s the problem with Finn?”
“He’s an outlaw biker.”
Lottie stopped for a second, giving that some consideration.
“Okay, yeah. But, like, isn’t that why you’re okay-ish right now? Because of his outlaw bikerness?”
“Probably,” I agreed. “Which makes me grateful he was the one to drive me home, but that doesn’t mean I want to jump into bed with him.”
“But jumping into bed is fun,” she said. “Why are you so opposed to fun?”
It wasn’t that I was opposed to it, per se.
I think it was more fair to say that I’d been forced into a parental role at a young age. That made me need to push aside my desire to have and seek fun, to build social circles, to be light and easy.
And I think that maybe if you lost out on the opportunity to have and be those things at a younger age, you just never got to.
I couldn’t say that, though. Not to Lottie, anyway. She would feel guilty. Like it was her fault our mom was dead and our father didn’t want to raise us.
“I think I just find different things fun than you do,” I said.
“How would you know until you try?” she reasoned. “I mean, maybe you would have loved getting thrown over a hot man’s shoulder and tossed into the pool.”