Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 147136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 736(@200wpm)___ 589(@250wpm)___ 490(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 147136 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 736(@200wpm)___ 589(@250wpm)___ 490(@300wpm)
Brian made me smile when I really needed it. But what was I giving him?
Honest?
Absolutely.
My phone rang, startling me and sending my heart racing a mile a minute.
I pushed up onto my knees and answered it on a breathless, “Hello?”
“Started typing and realized I didn’t feel like typing all that shit out, so I’m just gonna say it real quick then let you go, okay?”
His voice was low and husky, with a rough edge to it that made the hairs on my neck stand up.
Every. Single. One.
“Um …okay. Sure,” I replied, reaching up and grabbing on to a lock of my hair and twisting it.
He then proceeded to give me all his shit, as he so put it.
“Not a lot in my life right now that’s good. Hardly ever laugh like I did that night you told me to eat my own dick. Might’ve been the funniest shit I’ve ever heard. You were straight up defending your friend and I felt that shit. Felt what you told me yesterday, too. You seem cool and sweet. Definitely don’t have sweet in my life and not sure I deserve it, but I’m not gonna think about that ’cause this feels better. Not thinking. If you end up at any point not wanting to continue speaking to me, I’m cool with that. If you end up being unseparated and can’t continue speaking to me, I’m cool with that, too. You say the words and I’ll disappear, but if you don’t mind giving me more of what you’ve already shared, I’ll take it, Syd. I like talking to you. I liked it enough to reach out yesterday and enough to do it again today.”
“You texted me about a crossword puzzle,” I pointed out, suddenly wondering if maybe he tricked me into more conversation, because I didn’t know men who did crossword puzzles and who weren’t also eating off the senior citizen’s menu.
“You didn’t need to do that,” I elaborated. “You could’ve just sent me a ‘Hey, what’s up?’—you know? I would’ve answered.”
“I could’ve if I wasn’t currently stuck on a clue I thought maybe you could help me out with.”
“You’re really doing a crossword puzzle.”
I still didn’t believe him.
He sounded hot. Hot men didn’t do crosswords. I was sure of it.
“Why would I lie?” he questioned back, then quickly followed that up as if he could read my mind with, “Didn’t need an ‘in’ to talk to you, Wild. I’d already decided I was gonna hit you up later tonight once I had a free minute, got to working on this puzzle and got stuck, thought you might be able to help me out so I hit you up earlier than I was planning, but it was planned, okay?”
Wild.
I sighed. My lip twitched.
“Okay,” I whispered.
“I enjoy crossword puzzles.”
This got him another lip twitch even though he couldn’t see it, but I was certain he heard it in my voice when I responded.
“Cool.”
“Cool,” he echoed, cleared his throat, then asked, “Your thinking cap do anything yet? I gotta get going.”
“No, sorry. I’ll keep it on, though. It looks stylish with my red hair.”
I was greeted with silence.
Had my joke not landed?
“Brian?” I called into the phone.
“Red,” he mumbled, and even though his voice had grown softer, I could still hear the distinct smile in it.
So I made him smile, too.
That felt really good.
“Red,” I verified on a drop of my head. “Dark red.”
I heard his heavy exhale, then the drag of a chair across a floor.
“Gotta go.”
“Okay, Brian.”
“Later, Wild,” he mumbled.
“Later,” I replied back, then quickly disconnected the call and fell onto my hip, staring down at the phone in my hand while thinking a number of things, one of those things being Brian saying I was cool and sweet, and how good it felt hearing a compliment like that at a time like this.
Another thing being the fact that he didn’t have a lot of good in his life right now, and wondering what all that meant.
Maybe he had fallen on hard times. People do that. I was one of those people currently falling and falling fast.
Another thing I was thinking about being that crossword puzzle clue.
It was bugging me. I didn’t like being bested.
I took another peek at the clock, slid off the bed, grabbed my phone and the mug of hot chocolate, which was now warm chocolate but still just as tasty, and carried those both downstairs with me to begin preparing one of the only four things I knew how to cook.
Tacos.
Before my run to CVS earlier, I had gone out and gotten the ingredients I needed to make my ultimate shrimp tacos, plus a few other items I wanted to keep on hand in Tori’s kitchen, such as the hot cocoa mix and my favorite wasabi-flavored almonds.
They had just the right amount of kick.