Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
“Had me at hello. Lost me at pleonasm….” She shook her head. “It’s when you use more words than necessary to convey meaning. And I’d dare to say, if you can’t find enjoyment in paying homage to those who’ve come before us, you’re uncultured.”
“So, what you would consider cultured is taking a photo in front of a famous person’s grave that you are, one hundred and ten percent, planning to post to your Wanderlust InstaPic account?”
She shook her head before ducking underneath a low-hanging branch.
Blake’s steps faltered when we came to a cobblestone path flanked by mausoleums. “Look at all of them,” she whispered, placing a hand over her heart.
My guess? The trauma from her New Orleans lock-in had reared its ugly head.
“There are about a hundred other paths we could take that won’t give you a traumatic flashback.”
Shaking her head, she pushed her shoulders back. “I’m going to do this.” Said like she was about to walk a rotten swing bridge connecting two of the highest peaks in the Andes Mountains.
When she didn’t move, I patted the top of her head. “You can do it.”
She glared up at me. “Did you just pet me like I’m some pomeranian?”
“It was patting, not petting. Petting would be this.” Smiling, I stroked a hand over her silky hair, and she whacked my stomach hard enough that it forced a grunt from me.
Then she walked cautiously down the path like the old, corpse-holding buildings were going to rise from their foundations and swallow her up. Halfway down the walkway, she stopped to snap about fifteen rapid-fire pictures of a weeping angel statue erected between two mausoleums. “I have a confession to make,” she said, taking another photo.
“You put arsenic in my coffee earlier when I went to the restroom?”
“Actually, it was cyanide. It works much faster than arsenic.”
“I don’t think I want to know why you know that.”
“Late-night musings…” She smiled over her shoulder before continuing down the path. “You should have about fifteen minutes left.”
“That’s why you came to the cemetery with me instead of doing your own thing, isn’t it?” I thumbed behind me. “To shove me into one of those corpse houses?”
“I would rather be charged with murder than set foot in one of those things again.” She tucked a wave of her dark hair behind her ear as she turned to face me. “Seriously, though. As much as I’m tempted to let you go on believing I’m a completely vindictive, evil person, I can’t.”
I didn’t think Blake had a vindictive bone in her body. Had she, Rent-a-Poo would have been her idea and happened a long time ago, but for the sake of the banter I thoroughly enjoyed with her… I stepped a little closer. “Immoral is a much better word, but go on.”
A flicker of a smile caught her lips; that thesaurus had been worth the money.
“Since you absolved yourself last night from being an asshole.”
“By…”
“Confessing that you aren’t a misogynistic dickhead who thought calling me easy would get you laid, but an attractive guy who has the worst pickup lines ever—”
“You just admitted you find me attractive.”
“Most women do, Vance. Don’t play humble.”
The thing was, I didn’t care if other women found me appealing as long as Blake did. Somewhere along the way, she’d become the woman that mattered in that regard.
“I didn’t blackmail you because I was mad at you.” She frowned. “Actually, that may have been a small part of it, but the real reason was that this trip was supposed to be my Eat, Pray, Love moment.”
The girl was twenty-four; she couldn’t be having a midlife crisis, which was exactly what that book was about. I knew because in seventh grade when my grandmother had found a Playboy in my closet, she’d forced me to go to her book club as punishment. For six months, I endured reading women’s fiction and discussing the books with a group of white-haired ladies. Eat, Pray, Love had been the book that had stuck with me. It had ignited the first spark of wanderlust inside me. “You’re too young for a midlife crisis,” I said.
“Eat, Pray, Love is not about a midlife crisis.” The scowl she shot in my direction said offended.
“Fine. It’s a ‘my life is complete shit’ crisis, and your life is not complete shit, Blake.” I was about to list off all the examples of why her life was not shit, starting with the fact that she was, at the current moment, in Paris, taking selfies with tombstones.
“You think my life isn’t shit?” She lifted a brow. “Eight months ago, I was locked inside—as you so properly put it—a corpse house. Six months ago, a rat died behind my kitchen cabinets, and I had to have the cabinets professionally removed to get its rotting carcass out of my living space. In the past three months, I’ve had my appendix out, my little toe fractured, and six stitches in my index finger because I sliced it open at midnight, trying to cut a coupon from a cereal box. I would have needed to cash in ten-million stupid coupons before it would make up for the co-pay to the ER. Last month, my apartment caught on fire. And today, I’m excited because my best friend used Rent-a-Poo to ruin my sister’s engagement party. Her engagement party to my ex-fiancé—the man who is now my ex-fiancé only because I walked in on him railing my sister. On my bed.” She swatted at the tears that had built in her eyes. “I’ve had about seventeen pigeons shit on me this month alone. My little sister vomited in my only designer bag, and let’s not forget everything that happened last night. Like I said,” she dropped her chin to her chest on a defeated sigh. “I’m cursed, and I’m one more bad-luck incident away from flying to Thailand and trying to find a monk who will give me a spiritual cleansing. I just… need to figure out what I want out of life. Because every single time I think I have a grip on it, I end up hurt and shattered and a little more cynical.”