Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129460 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 647(@200wpm)___ 518(@250wpm)___ 432(@300wpm)
“Jess—”
“Come get your food before I invite Daniel over for dinner every day for the next two years.”
Although I’m reasonably sure she’d suffer more than me if she followed through with her threat, I push off my feet and follow her down the stairs before Octavia can work out what the hell is happening. There is something about Daniel that rubs me the wrong way, and although it could be because he is a quote ‘God-fearing man,’ it feels more than that.
“Not just that one,” Jess snaps out when I stack two of the Styrofoam boxes together before twisting to face the entrance to her apartment. “There’s all the excess stock in the spare bedroom as well.”
With my brows fettered, I follow her into the room directly below Octavia’s.
“What the fuck?” I murmur under my breath when I notice two industrial-size freezers pushed up against the back wall.
“Yeah, slight overkill, right? But hey, I thought my father was planning to host Thanksgiving here for the next hundred years!” She shouts her last four words. Faster than I can click my fingers, her face goes deadpanned, and she folds her arms under her ample chest. “Why are you laughing? This isn’t funny.”
Even aware I’m digging a hole I’ll never make it out of, I have a hard time lying to Jess. Why do you think I had to avoid her so much over the past three years? “It kinda is. You look like you’re preparing for World War III.”
The boxes I’m balancing leave me no protection. I grunt through the jab Jess hits me with, then growl when she murmurs, “I need to date a dozen linebackers to get rid of all these meals.”
She stops mentally calculating the number of meals hidden behind massive chest freezers when I murmur, “Thick Thighs Thursday.”
Her confused expression is cute. “What?”
I dump the boxes to make sure I can protect my package before muttering again, “Thick Thighs Thursday.” As I stray my eyes around the room, I disclose, “All the meals were on the top calorie plan, so anyone who eats them will bulk up, so thick thighs seem appropriate.”
“The meals aren’t calorie controlled?”
Jess’s white face reddens with anger when I shake my head.
“Caleb! You’re the reason I have to drink gross smoothies and eat carrot sticks for dessert. Oh my God...” As she spins around the room, her mental calculations start all over again. “You’re the reason my ass got fat. And here I was blaming my grandma.”
“You shouldn’t blame her. You should thank her.”
Assuming I am joking to slacken her annoyance, she slaps my chest two times before storming out of the room.
“Where are you going?” I ask, chasing her down.
After snatching up her cell, she stares me dead set in the eyes. “Thick Thighs Thursday, right?” When I nod, she murmurs, “Great idea. I’ve seen the thighs of the men at my gym. I’m sure they’ll be down with high-carb meals and a woman desperate to do anything to burn off the excess calories.”
“Jess…”
She acts as if I’m not in the room while talking to her first gym buddy.
The only time she peers up at me is while waiting for her sixth suitor to answer his phone, and my jealousy is about to boil over. I’ve tried for years to cap it, but nothing works. It is right here, eating away at me every single day.
Furthermore, I can’t come, so neither can Jess, especially not with a douche who goes to the gym one hundred times a week.
“I didn’t buy the food for other people, Jessie. I bought it for you.”
Her voice doesn’t match her facial expression. She looks bored, but her voice is curious. “Because?”
If I couldn’t hear the annoying shrill of an awaiting call sounding out of her cell, I may have answered differently. “Because I care about you, and I need to know you’re eating okay.”
My teeth grit when she purrs out, “Because?”
“Because you do my fucking head in, that’s why,” I snap out, incapable of controlling my anger even without drugs lacing my veins.
Jess rolls her eyes before leaving a message for Brad, then she scrolls down one spot in her contact list to call Bradley.
When she puts her call on speaker, and I hear how eager Bradley sounds that she’s called him, I blurt out, “Because before I knew who your father was, I didn’t hear him when I was with you. I only saw you.” Even if she hadn’t put her caller on mute, I still would have confessed this. It is long overdue. “That’s never happened with anyone else. I could never turn him off.”
Jess hides the quiver of her lips by licking them before telling Bradley she will call him later. “Maybe.”
After hanging up before he has the chance to protest, she dumps her cell onto the kitchen counter wedged between us before locking her eyes with mine. They promise I could tell her anything and she’d never judge me, but I still clam up when she asks, “And that’s changed now?”