Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 75720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75720 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 379(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Even though I was positive our sex would be tectonic-plate-shatteringly good.
But Jake was a good soul and proving to be an even better friend. The last thing I wanted to do was mess up the solid connection we were building, which meant the kiss would need to stay in the past, confined to my daydreams and spank-bank fantasies. I had to think about him in the same way I thought about Tristan and Eric. They were practically brothers to me, which meant any kind of romantic interaction was completely off the table.
Speaking of, I could still see Eric and Tristan through the window, both of them currently trying to teach Jess and Tia some kind of viral dance, their hips swaying and hands clapping in unison. I chuckled to myself as I got out of my car and walked over to the already unlocked door. I stepped inside, the sound of music and laughter greeting me before any official hellos had been traded.
“You’re the last one to get here,” Yvette said when I turned the corner into her living room. She held up a shot glass, bright blue liquid filling it up to the brim. “That means this one is yours.”
I gave her a playful glare and took the shot. Blueberry and vodka swirled down my throat and earned a shoulder-shaking shiver from me. She took the shot glass back and went to the kitchen, leaving me to make my rounds, ending the hellos with Jake, who stood up from the couch and wrapped me up in a tight hug. A good one, where our bodies just kind of fit perfectly together and I could sort of feel the slight rise of his crotch.
It was a really good hug. “Mmm, you smell great,” I said as we separated, unable to help myself.
“Thank you. It’s a new cologne.”
“Well, keep buying it.”
“I will,” he said with a smooth wink.
Yvette’s living room was cozy and well decorated, the main sitting area compromised of seven modular couches that were cloud white and just as soft. They were able to be rearranged however Yvette liked, so there were three love seats and one singular seat, where Yvette came and sat cross-legged, book in one hand and wineglass in another. Jess and Tia were on one of the love seats, and Eric and Tristan were on the other, so I plopped down next to Jake. He was also double fisting a book and a colorful can of beer, matching the colorful blue and pink stripes of his polo shirt, a pair of black shorts tying it all together. His light brown hair looked like it had just been cut, cleaned up down the sides and trimmed at the top.
“Everyone settled in alright?” Yvette asked, pushing a rogue curl out of her hair. There was a stack of tarot cards sitting on the side table next to her, a bed of purple velvet fabric falling down onto the floor. She was big on reading them and would often do it for us whenever we needed that little extra guidance.
“Perfect,” she said with a clap of her hands. “There’s plenty more drinks in the fridge, and I ordered us pizza—should be getting here soon. But in the meantime, let’s get this show on the road. Everyone caught up on their reading?”
A chorus of yups and yeses came from the group. I set my book down on my lap, the surrealistic painting of a sinister girl and a suburban house staring back up at me.
Yvette sat back in her seat. There were two large watercolor paintings of her two cats that bordered either side of her, their curving gold frames making the cats look even more regal than the two kings they’d been in real life. “Perf. Okay, so for tonight’s game, I wanted to pull out a card every time we start on a new chapter, but the cards aren’t for us. They’re for the characters. I’ll pull one out, say what it means, and we can all decide which character it’s for. Sound good?”
“Ooh, sounds really fun to me,” Jess said, her girlfriend nodding in agreement.
“Let’s get it started, then.”
And so our book club night officially began. We started it off by talking about the insinuation that the murderer started making the macabre jewelry because of her obsession with her Archie, the main character’s ex-husband, who had a wide collection of rare and expensive jewelry. There was a chapter where Archie and the murderer talk, although the murderer’s POV or name isn’t revealed, so it was clear a link was there between them. It was also insinuated that the murderer was becoming fixated on Gabrielle and targeted her jewelry store ads specifically to bait Gabrielle into buying from her.
Yvette grabbed her deck and gave it a shuffle, closing her eyes before pulling off the topmost card and flipping it over, setting it down on the long white coffee table in the center of the room. It depicted a woman and a man huddling together against a strong and snow-filled wind, the snow flecks glistening silver against the matte background. A silver-and-golden border surrounded the card like ivy growing along its edges.