Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 84344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84344 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“One must be just for the luggage,” Cooper says in back of Julia. “I told you that you overpacked.” He looks at Erika.
“Remember one year when someone asked Vivi for hand cream, and she handed them her KY?” Erika says, making us all laugh.
“That was me,” Franny confirms.
“I don’t know why you’re laughing. You never gave it back to me,” Vivi scolds, standing behind her as we slowly walk down the steps.
Alex takes off her hat and bends her head forward when the woman places the lei around her neck. “Look, I got lei’d.” She turns back to us, thinking it’s the funniest thing she said.
“I got lei’d too,” Emma announces, making Cooper groan.
“I wonder if I can get double lei’d,” Julia says.
“I want to be double lei’d,” Emma echoes, and everyone except Cooper laughs at that.
“Can you move along?” Cooper prods.
“Yeah,” Julia says. “Let other people get lei’d.”
I don’t even know how long it takes us to load the bus, but when we finally get to the resort, all of us are ready to see other people. There are more people waiting for us all with clipboards and a slew of golf carts.
The massive open hotel lobby behind him is filled with cream-colored marble with a front desk. I don’t pay attention to the guy as he explains the private resort we are at. They hand each of us a map of the resort, and I look down. “We will meet in thirty minutes for our first meal.”
There are twenty-five private villas scattered around the pool and the beachfront. The center of the resort has the lobby as well as the place where the main dining area is. When they call Alex’s and my name, I look up, heading to the golf cart with the guy. We walk into the villa, the cold air hitting us right away. “Go choose the room you want,” I tell Alex, who just stares out the floor-to-ceiling window with a view of the dark blue waters. The living room is in the middle and with one bedroom on each side, with their own private bathrooms.
Dinner is a mess with the kids cranky from the time difference, and when I collapse into bed, I don’t even care that it’s only seven o’clock local time.
We spend the first four days out half by the pool and the other half by the beach. Alex spends less and less time with me, and I have to wonder if she is doing it because she felt me wanting to kiss her or she’s just disgusted by me. It’s not to say we don’t talk, but it’s not the same. She is out of the villa before I wake up, and at night after dinner, she sits with Vivi and Julia most of the night. My head is all over the place as I try to make the decision on what to do.
I sit down with my grandfather on the fifth day, and all he does is listen to me. Finally, after I pour my whole heart out to him, he looks at me. “You are going to regret the decision no matter what you decide.” If anyone knows what hockey is about, it’s him. He holds most of the records out there, and I say most of them because I’ve beaten a couple of them. “You will forever have Montreal in your heart and always look back to that time. If you go to another team and you kill it, you’ll regret not doing it in Montreal. If you go to a team and you suck, and the team sucks, you are going to regret leaving.”
“That doesn’t help me,” I say, laughing.
“Time for you to do what you want to do,” he says. Leaning back in the chair, he looks out at the ocean water where Chase is standing on one of those paddleboard things. “Where does your heart want you to go?” I look over at Alex, who is getting up and walking to the ocean water now, as she laughs about something that Chase is telling her.
Chase comes out of the water, pushing his hair back. “Hey, Fabio,” my uncle Matthew calls him. “Did you put on sunscreen?”
Chase just laughs at him. “Nah.” He stands there with his hands on his hips. “I sprayed myself down with oil, so I glisten.” We can’t help but laugh. He comes up to the lounge bed where I’m lying, trying to stay out of the heat. “Are we hitting the bar tonight?”
“Yes, please,” Vivi says, lifting her head from the other lounge bed beside me. “There is a local bar five minutes over.”
“How do you know?” Franny says as she laughs beside Wilson, who makes sure his arm is over her, so you know she’s taken.
“We went out last night,” Vivi says, and I look over at her. “Julia, Chase, and I hit it up.”