Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 59489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 297(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
His eyes slid down to the necklace I was still wearing, and I felt my cheeks burn again. This was just going swimmingly.
"It's all right," he said. "I was glad to be of service."
Desiree came over to me with my drink, and I took it from her. I held it up toward him.
"Thank you again."
He nodded, and I returned to the table.
For the rest of the night, we stole a few glances at each other, but I tried to keep my focus on the party. It was quickly sliding into out-of-control territory. An hour later, I knew it was time to take some drastic action and get these girls out of here.
We'd already hit a few bars, but it was still early in the greater scheme of things, and Viv had a couple more activities planned. Brianne wasn't going to relent to giving up any of those plans, so she couldn't just spiral off into oblivion. Unfortunately, that might have already happened.
Two of the girls were dancing wildly in the middle of the dance floor, each seemingly to her own beat independent of the other. Another had been pushed back from the bar and was instead on her knees on one of the barstools, doing her best to perform a sexy dance. The fourth had discovered a dart board and was throwing darts without any sense of aim or intention. And to round out the party, Viv was currently trying to take over the microphone for the open mic night. It was not open mic night that night.
It was up to me to round everybody up and get them back out to the party limo Viv had hired. I decided to take the process in waves, starting with the most likely to get us removed from the bar. Going over to the small platform stage, I took hold of Viv's wrist and gently tugged her.
"Come on. Time to go," I said.
"But I want to do karaoke," she said.
The DJ who had been trying to keep her away from the mic gave me a withering look. He was losing patience.
"It isn't a karaoke bar, Viv," I said.
"Sure it is. There's a microphone. I have the best song for tonight…. And IIIIIIII will always love youuuuuuuuu…"
She held that 'you' for a stunningly long time, and I didn't have the heart to try to explain to her why that was not a good song for a bachelorette party. Instead, I got up on the stage with her and wrapped my arm around her waist to guide her away. She gave a sudden hard tug that yanked me up against her by my neck.
"Viv…"
"You are such a good friend. Do you know that? You are just such a good friend. I wanted to do this party, and you let me. You could have said no. You could have been like ‘Absolutely not. I'm the maid of honor and I'm going to do the party.’ But you didn't. You let me do this for my sister," she slurred.
"You're welcome, Viv. We need to go now."
"How about a dance?"
I looked down and saw the guy I’d kissed standing at the base of the stage. At first, I thought this was truly the worst moment ever for him to attempt to hit on me, but then I realized he was extending a hand toward Viv. She put her hand in his, and he guided her down. He carefully held her at arm's length, and they danced for a few seconds before he gave her a spin into my grasp.
"Say good night," I said.
"Good night," Viv said, waving at him.
I had a feeling the rest of the evening was going to be cut very short. I managed to get her out to the limo, gave the driver instructions to keep her inside, and went back in to collect the rest of the girls. When I'd finally gotten them all out, I glanced around to try to see the man and thank him, but I couldn't find him. Not willing to risk the bachelorette party escaping the limo and running wild on the streets, I left.
3
CAMDEN
The alarm went off like it always did at four-thirty, and I sat up to turn it off.
It was ancient, a relic from the nineties, but a treasured possession of mine. A rounded cube shape, the speaker was incredibly powerful, and I often used the built-in CD player and radio to blast music while I did household chores since I could hear it all through the house even playing from my nightstand. But it was the alarm that was the most useful. Starting low and increasing in volume and urgency, it got me moving every morning before sun-up, and today was going to be no different.
Today was the first day of classes.
Sliding out of bed, I shook my head and yawned. Sleep did not come easy last night. Usually, by the time evening rolled around, I was already feeling tired from a hard day’s work and by ten would be sound asleep. Going to the bar the other night had thrown the entire sleep schedule off, and now I was stuck in the nebulous gray area where I was tired all the time but didn’t necessarily want to go to bed either.