Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 130380 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130380 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 522(@250wpm)___ 435(@300wpm)
I cleared my throat. “Need any help?”
She paused, one hand still on the cooler as she peered over her shoulder.
And fuck if that didn’t make the view even harder to look away from. Now not only was she bent over, but she was bent over and looking back at me with those kohl-lined green eyes and pouty fucking lips.
“Does it look like I can’t handle unloading a cooler?”
I bit back the urge to tell her I didn’t think there was much of anything she couldn’t handle.
Instead, I stepped fully into the kitchen, reaching over her head for a beer out of the fridge door before I hopped up to sit on the counter. I cracked the top on the can, sucking half of it down in one pull.
Mary just stared at me, offering one solo, slow blink before she shook her head and got back to what she was doing.
“Are you all settled in your new room?”
“As settled as I need to be for this temporary situation, yes.”
I paused, something familiar about her voice striking me like a lightning bolt to the gut. It had happened earlier that day, too, and I couldn’t explain it. I’d talked to Mary dozens of times since she and Julep moved across the street. Of course, her voice sounded familiar.
But it almost felt like something more than that.
I shook my head, blaming the weirdness on the heat stroke we all incurred moving Mary’s shit.
“I’m sorry about earlier,” I said after a moment, and I meant it.
It had all been fun and games until I’d seen regret in her eyes. For reasons I couldn’t explain, it made me a little ill to think about her spending the night at some cheap motel with God knows who in the room next to her. I was glad she took me up on my offer — that we could help while they fixed up her place.
“Clowning around is kind of my default mode, but I know shit like that can be ill-timed. I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m sure this is all—”
“It’s fine,” she said, cutting me off. “You can go back to your game now.”
I smirked at the sassy interruption. She was already more herself than earlier. “Game’s over. I think I’ll hang out here, instead.”
She didn’t have to turn around for me to know she was rolling her eyes.
I didn’t know why I loved to get under her skin so much. Probably because I was used to a very different reaction from most of the girls I encountered. The past three years had been easy for me. If I wanted a date, I could have one with the snap of my fingers. If I wanted a girl in my bed, I had a phone full of numbers I could shoot a text to and get just that.
But Mary Silver didn’t give me anything other than slightly heated indifference.
It was sick how much I liked it.
That prickly nature wound me up in a way nothing else could. I liked that she wasn’t simpering, that flirting with me seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind. Her sharp wit was just icing on the cake.
“We should game sometime,” I said.
She froze, only for a second, but enough for me to notice before she grabbed a container of yogurt and slid it into the back of the fridge.
“Kyle told me you have a PlayStation.”
“I doubt we play any of the same games.”
“I could teach you.”
She whipped around, narrowing her gaze at me with one eyebrow arched.
I threw up my hands with a laugh. “Or you could teach me, I didn’t mean to assume.”
She was still glaring at me as she turned back around.
“I’m not really into Battle Royale games,” she said. “Or those weird ass faces you were making out there.”
“I don’t make faces.”
She shut the fridge door and slowly stood, hands bracing on her knees as she did. “Oh?” She squinted her eyes, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth first before she started rolling it like she was trying to wet every inch of her lips. Her hands were braced in front of her holding an invisible controller, and she made sharp, shifty movements, looking like some kind of deranged animal.
Abruptly, she stopped, her face deadpan again.
“So you just look like that normally?”
I blinked at her, then barked out a laugh. “I wish I would have recorded that.”
She didn’t humor me with so much as another glance in my direction before she picked up the empty cooler and started walking toward the stairs. I hopped off the counter and followed.
“We can store that in the garage,” I offered.
“It’s fine, I have room in the closet.”
“I find that hard to believe after the heaps of clothes we carried over today.”
She sighed, still holding the cooler at the foot of the stairs as she turned to face me. “Is this how it’s going to be until my place gets fixed? You buzzing around me like a gnat?”