Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Sig laughed, visibly delighted by his outburst. “Okay, I won’t.” His friend gave him a slow grin, obviously meant to incite him—and it was working. “I’ll just think about it.”
“You have a death wish.”
“Look. I’m just saying . . .” Sig made a flippant hand gesture, indicating Burgess’s body. “You’ve still got it. She’s already living with you, right? So you don’t even have to invent reasons to see her. That’s half the battle. Now let’s say you forget to wear a shirt to breakfast. Oops! Suddenly she’s got two hundred and eighty pounds of defenseman of the year looking back at her over a bowl of Cheerios.” Sig picked up a kettle bell. “Just saying, it could be compelling.”
“I promised to take her skinny dipping in Jamaica Pond,” Burgess grumbled, sneaking Sig a measuring look. “Is that something?”
Sig dropped the kettle bell. “What?”
Burgess feigned nonchalance. “Nothing.”
“Fuck you, nothing. Explain.”
“No.”
Sig stared at him hard. “She better not invite Chloe.”
“I’ll make sure to suggest it.”
“God, you’re a prick.” Sig considered him through a squinted eye. “I’m starting to think this au pair affair is going to be fun to watch.”
Burgess didn’t know if “fun” was a word that could be attached to anything related to him.
But he did know he was looking forward to getting home tonight. More than ever.
Again, the memory of Tallulah stroking his bicep skipped like a stone across the pond of his mind. Not that he would admit this to Sig, but . . .
Maybe the whole shirtless thing had some merit?
Chapter Twelve
Tallulah clutched her chest with one hand, the script in the other. “I fear too early, for my mind misgives. Some consequences yet hanging in the stars shall bitterly begin.”
Lissa flopped onto the couch, throwing a dramatic arm across her eyes. “How do they expect a bunch of twelve-year-olds to know what this stuff means?”
Not for the first time, Tallulah wondered if Lissa was an adult trapped in a tween body. “You read my mind, kid,” Tallulah said, plopping down beside her. “I think the point might be that you try to figure out what it means. Sometimes that’s what learning comes down to. Making your mind stretch.”
Lissa groaned. “You sound like Mrs. DeSoto, my language arts teacher.”
“Mrs. DeSoto sounds like a wise and stylish woman,” Tallulah sniffed.
The girl humphed. “We’re going to get assigned roles in class, so we can act out Romeo and Juliet. We don’t have to memorize the script or anything, you get to hold your book while you do it. But . . . all the girls want to be Juliet.”
“Including you?”
Lissa picked at the edge of the couch. “Maybe.”
In other words, yes, desperately.
“Thad Durst is probably going to get picked for Romeo.” Lissa’s face started to turn pink. “He’s, like, the best reader and he’s Mrs. DeSoto’s favorite, even though he goofs off in class. He never raises his hand, he just blurts things out and everyone laughs. It’s not even fair.”
“Every class has a Thad, I think. Mine was named Nolan. Let me guess, he’s constantly fixing his hair. Like this.” Tallulah did a microscopic head flick. “Over and over again.”
Lissa burst out laughing. “He does do that!”
“They all do. It’s in the cool guy DNA.”
“A bunch of girls like him.”
“Hmm.”
“I don’t.”
“Okay.” Tallulah surreptitiously studied the flush coloring Lissa’s usually pale complexion and decided they would be turning the corner into crushes soon. Maybe they already had, but she wouldn’t push Lissa to talk about it. Instead, Tallulah cleared her throat and raised the script up in front of her face. “You’re up, Benvolio.”
“I want to play Juliet, too,” Lissa said quietly.
Tallulah put her arm around Lissa’s shoulders. “Then I hope you get picked, but no matter what happens, you’ll always be my Juliet.”
A thoughtful smile plucked at Lissa’s lips. “My parents are kind of like Romeo and Juliet, I think. They were meant to be together.”
That statement dropped into Tallulah’s stomach like a brick into a swimming pool.
Just over a week ago, she’d made out with Romeo outside of a club. Who did that make her? Rosaline? Some other off-script side chick? “What do you mean?”
“Sort of like Romeo and Juliet, they were just star-crossed. The timing was wrong. My dad was more famous when they were married, so he was always doing interviews and filming commercials. Now he has more time. They just have to figure it out.” She slumped a little. “I’ve been begging my mom to bring me to the opening night game, so they can see each other, but she said no.”
Probably because Mom was busy with her new fiancé.
Or maybe they simply weren’t the type of divorced couple who could make a friendship work. Conscious uncoupling wasn’t for everyone. Sometimes a split was clean, without a second act friendship. Whatever the reason, it worried Tallulah that Lissa wanted a reconciliation so badly and it didn’t seem to be remotely in the cards.