Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 117494 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117494 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 392(@300wpm)
“Tell him about the tits.”
A hint of a grin showed before he schooled his features. “Tits it is.”
He went inside, and I finished my beer before I went to my bike.
10
KALI
I was starting to daydream about how to murder my friends.
Just kidding.
Thirty-six hours in the car, and that wasn’t counting the hotel stay.
So… maybe I wasn’t totally kidding.
No, really. I was kidding.
Or—ugh.
Besides the fact that we’d all picked up a certain smell around hour twenty-eight—one that refused to budge, no matter how much we showered and could only be described as “travel smell”—we were peachy, and fully hyped up on caffeine and sugar. Harper was the sugar, Aly and me the caffeine.
We were having a discussion over who was the best mean girl from Glee, and Aly got so upset, she lit up a cigarette.
I didn’t even know she smoked.
She started to light a second one, but Harper started coughing, pounding his chest. “I’m allergic to smoke. No more smoking. Please, Ally McBeal.”
That got her laughing. The dancing naked baby always got her in a good mood—or a better mood. At least she set the cigarettes aside. Based on the strain lines stretched tight around her mouth, she hadn’t enjoyed the fact that Harper didn’t want to talk about Justin today, so he’d gone right back to Aly’s love life. I was pretty sure he was on a mission to end her fantasy of finding a millionaire farmer.
Indiana had lots of farmers, but not too many millionaires in our county, and I knew Aly. She stayed in Friendly to take care of her grandmother. She wasn’t moving, even to a different county. But geez, Harper. Why take away her dream?
Some of us might wish we still had a dream.
I kept that to myself. Otherwise Harper would jump on it the next time he wanted to avoid talking about Justin.
Thinking about Justin, I pulled him up on Insta and sent him a message.
Kali: Harper told us why you two broke up. Anything you want me to share with him when we finally get him to open up and talk about it?
I felt like Harper was scared of marriage because of, well, fear. He was just scared.
I needed to get both of them to talk.
My phone beeped.
JustinBanana: Hi. Nothing. He knows. Good luck. If you crack him, send him my way. I’ll love him back together.
Oh, man.
I hadn’t let myself form a firm opinion about Justin, mostly because I didn’t know what happened and because I was loyal to Harper. Now that I knew, and based on this response, I kinda wished Justin wasn’t gay. The guy was hot. And loving. And kind. And intelligent. And patient. And wise. And Harper needed to get his head out of his own ass. That’s just how it was.
I was going to share that with him too.
Except, maybe not until they’d nailed me down and tortured my own shit out of me.
After that, I’d say something. All bets were off.
I gave Harper a look. His eyes seemed a little glazed. Too much sugar. He felt me looking, gave me a silly grin, and popped in another Mike & Ike.
I sighed internally because I knew I wasn’t about to bring anything up with him, because he’d turn the tables on me. Me. Foley. Why I’d stayed—it all haunted me.
“Why’d you stay?”
“You love that hard? Accept that shit from him? Or what? Don’t know your worth—”
What a dick.
Well.
Maybe not.
That kiss, though.
I was sighing all over again.
“Holy shit!” Aly shrieked.
She was at the wheel, and we’d been driving down back roads. Or trying to. The last few roads had been a bit desolate, so I’d tuned out.
Harper blinked a few times, looking around as if returning to reality.
We were back on the highway now, and I saw nothing unusual. Well, maybe a tumbleweed, which was kinda cool because I’d never seen a tumbleweed before.
Then I saw what she meant.
Aly was right. It was a holy shit moment.
I saw the Harley first, parked on the shoulder. There were two others.
No, there were three.
One of the guys punched another guy, and he went back down. He’d already been on the ground. The last guy wasn’t doing anything. He just stood there, almost like a guard.
The holy shit part wasn’t seeing bikers punching each other. We could see that at my mom’s bar. The holy shit part was that all three were wearing Red Demon cuts, and my extra holy shit moment was when the guy who’d delivered that last punch stopped and looked up.
In an instant I could feel his touch again, the way he’d held the back of my head, how his lips at first had just grazed over mine.
They’d been a tease. A caress.
I’d wanted more instantly, and I’d reached for him, not thinking, just needing. I’d surged up on my toes, fusing our mouths, and then he’d taken over.