Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 70607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
"I'll go get the bags," Ace says, walking away from us, and I want to follow him and go with him.
"I'm going to go help him," I state, and my sisters laugh.
"I think he can handle two suitcases," Clarabella says. "Besides, we want to hear all about your week."
"Yeah," Presley agrees, and all I can do is watch Ace wait for the bags. The smile that was on his face the whole week is gone. "You didn't text us after that first day. Um, hello, Shelby," she says, and I look over at her.
"I'm sorry, what?" I ask.
"What the hell did you do all week?" Clarabella quizzes, folding her arms over her chest. "You went radio silent."
"I was on vacation," I remind her, trying not to look at her in case she can see all the memories replaying in my head.
"Here you go." I hear Ace, and for the first time today, he doesn't lean over and kiss me.
"Thank you," I mumble as I try to catch his attention.
"Ladies." He smiles at my sisters. "It was a pleasure." He smirks at them and then finally turns to look at me. "Shelby, thanks for the week."
"Was she a buzzkill?" Presley asks, looking at him, and he looks down at his feet and then looks up again, looking straight at me with a soft smile on his face.
"She was perfect," he replies, and I can't help the smile that comes on my face. "I'll see you guys around," he says, grabbing his luggage and walking away from us. I watch him go even though the whole time, I want to yell at him to stop, but I don't do anything but follow my sisters out. The two of them are telling me what I missed, but the whole time, I try looking around to see if he's around here somewhere.
I don't say anything on the ride back to my house. Instead, I look out of the window and wonder where my phone is. I get home and walk into the house, stopping when I see that the picture of Joseph and me is gone. I look around the family room seeing his magazines are gone. Walking to the kitchen I see everything that he touched or would look like it belonged to him is gone. "Who cleaned out my house?" I look over at Clarabella, who is huffing up the steps trying to get the luggage into the house.
"Did you bring bricks with you?" she asks, stopping to take a breath. "How is it that your luggage is a million pounds when all you packed is skanky-ass clothes?"
"I forgot about the clothes," Presley says, laughing as she walks to the fridge and grabs something to drink. "What did Ace say when he saw you in those ho clothes?"
"He didn't say anything," I mumble, looking around and wondering if they are going to be here long.
"Was Joseph the one who cleaned up his stuff?" I ask, and they laugh.
"Are you kidding?" Clarabella says. "Mom came in with a brown box, and anything that didn't look like you bought it, she tossed in the box." I look at her with my mouth open now. "Then she dropped it off on his front porch."
"She did not," I say, walking over to my purse and getting my phone. Seeing it's dead, I walk over to the counter and plug it in.
"She did," Presley confirms. "And she wrote dickhead on the box." She laughs. "It's my new screen saver."
I look at the time on the stove and then turn to look at my sisters. "I'm tired," I tell them, hoping that they don't see me lying.
"You were on vacation for a week," Clarabella points out, folding her arms over her chest. "Seven days."
"Yeah," Presley says, leaning against the counter. "Besides drinking and passing out, what else did you do?"
"We didn't do anything," I gasp. "It was two friends on vacation." I look over at them. "I'm going to start my laundry."
"Well, this is fun," Clarabella says. "But I can tell when you are trying to get rid of us."
"I told you she was going to be like this," Presley claims. "I told her to let you Uber home by yourself and make you think we didn't care. But no." She glares at Clarabella. "We had to be supportive."
"Thank you guys so much." I look at them. "It's just I'm . . ." I don't even know what to say.
"We get it," Clarabella says. "It's hard being home without seeing Joseph's stuff, and you have to settle in."
"Yes," I agree, not telling her that I didn't think about Joseph once since I kissed Ace.
"Well, listen, you call us if you are feeling down," Presley says. "All you have to do is call Clarabella, and she's going to rush over here." I laugh as they argue out of the house.