Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114211 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Bridger doesn’t say anything for a minute. This close, I notice every detail of his face when it moves, even his eyebrows when they tick up the tiniest bit, maybe with curiosity, but most likely amusement. “So do you ask your girlfriend for permission, too?”
I frown at him. “Who?”
“Your girlfriend. The one you were at Tumbleweeds with.”
“Huh? Wait, you mean Juni?” Suddenly I laugh. It’s awkward to laugh this close to someone’s face, by the way. It comes out like a muffled noise through my nostrils. “Juniper isn’t my girlfriend. She’s my bestie.”
“Bestie?”
“Yeah, bestie. Ain’t you had a—” Fucking Christ, our faces are so close, I can count his eyelashes. “—a bestie before?”
“Not really.”
And when you’re this close to someone, you can’t look away. There’s nowhere to put your eyes except on their face, right there, like all of my attention is trapped.
Yet I don’t mind at all.
I want to be trapped, right here where it feels safe—safe and a little weird. I think I’m starting to like the weird. Is that weird?
“What do you mean you’ve never had a bestie?” I ask, quiet. “Don’t you have any friends?”
“Not really.”
“Who’s Pete then?”
“My brother in arms.”
“And you don’t consider him a friend?”
“It’s different.”
“Why don’t you have friends? Do you scare them all away?”
Bridger’s eyes go somewhere else, even while he continues to look at me. “What if I do?”
I stare back at him.
Thinking of all the so-called friends I scared away myself.
Not that I think I scared away Cole or his boyfriend.
Or Jimmy and Bobby with my behavior in the past.
No one in town looks me directly in the eyes anymore. Not in the fearless way Bridger is right now.
“Is your soul back in your body yet?” he asks, and only he can make such a ridiculous question sound so fucking sincere.
And then I mortify myself by answering: “No.”
Why did I say no? Why would I do that? Why am I—
“That’s fine,” he says.
And holds me a little tighter.
What in the fuck is happening right now?
“Whenever my soul flies outta my body,” he says so genuinely, I could believe this same exact thing happens to him, too, “I need a good minute to feel like myself again, to rediscover my calm.”
Calm?
I’m so stupidly far from calm right now.
“What’s going on?” I blurt suddenly. “This an excuse to touch me? You getting off on this?”
“Asks the guy who grabbed my ass.”
I shut my eyes, annoyed. “I didn’t grab your—”
“I have done plenty of squats to get it nice and firm, like you were so quick to point out. Proud of my ass. Worked hard on it.”
“Shut up.”
“And it’s okay to want to be held,” he says, still frustratingly gentle. “Doesn’t put me out at all. Maybe this is … something you need more of. Being held. No shame, saying that.”
The hell is he getting at? “Why are you so weird suddenly?”
“Why did you call my face pretty?”
The question, asked yet again, sobers me right up, right to the bone. I step away from him back into the street, his arms dropping to his sides. “What’s with that again?” I let out a laugh that gets swallowed right back up into my throat the second it leaves it. “Pretty? When the hell would I have said that?”
Bridger’s hands slide into his pockets. “Last night.”
“When last night?”
“Before you fell asleep in my arms.”
Fell asleep in his arms. A flash of his face, yet again.
The touch of soft lips against mine …
“At the church? When I was totally fuckin’ out of it?” I blurt out suddenly, probably to push away those random-ass visions yet again. “Shit, how can … how can I be held responsible for what I might’ve done or said when I’m—That ain’t fair. Besides, even if I did say it … it’s stating a fact. Simple. You are a good-lookin’ guy. Like callin’ the sky blue. Big deal. Who gives a fuck?”
“I gave a fuck.”
I shake my head and turn to cross the road again—then freeze to belatedly check for traffic, nearly having forgotten to learn my damned lesson. “Fine,” I throw over my shoulder, “so you like to be flattered. What a surprise, with a head as big as yours.”
“You think my head’s big?” He comes to my side. “Should look both ways before you cross the street, y’know.”
“Thanks, Daddy.”
“You find any other guys’ faces pretty? Or just mine?”
“Fuck off.”
I head across the street and continue my way down Apricot. When I peer to the side to check if he’s following me, I realize with a start that the guy’s walking right next to me. We might as well be on a cute nighttime stroll, the two of us, walking off our Italian meals and enjoying the fresh air. Trey would be beaming now.
Forgive me if I can’t seem to enjoy this guy’s company.