Total pages in book: 241
Estimated words: 234779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1174(@200wpm)___ 939(@250wpm)___ 783(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 234779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1174(@200wpm)___ 939(@250wpm)___ 783(@300wpm)
I pout. “No. I don’t even like the assignment.”
“You’ve thought it through more than I have,” he says. “You can even half-ass it. Mrs. Dowd loves me. I’ll probably get a better grade than you even if yours is a thousand times better.”
I roll my eyes. “No kidding. She’s the worst.”
“I don’t think she likes women,” he says.
“Not ones who aren’t nuns, at least.”
“It’s decided,” Hunter says, closing his laptop. “You’re gonna do my English assignment for me.”
“I don’t think we decided that.” I flip to the chapter where Daisy gets the letter so I can make a few notes. “I’ll be your critique partner if you want. You can bounce your ideas off me and I’ll help you iron out the wrinkles, but I’m not going to do all the work for you.”
Hunter grabs his phone and kicks back to theatrically dig in on me doing his work for him, but when he does, his expression shifts.
I do a double-take when I see him scowling at his phone screen.
“What’s wrong?” I ask.
His gaze flickers to mine. He seems to instinctively turn his phone screen away from me. “Nothing.”
I scowl. “Nothing?”
He’s lying.
“What is it?” I ask, not even waiting for him to feed me more bullshit. “Or, who is it?”
“Who is what?”
“You turned your phone screen like you didn’t want me to see it. Off the top of my head, I can think of exactly one reason you would do that, so… who texted you? Is it Valerie?”
His tone is dismissive, but his face is unconvincing. “No, it’s—I’m—Uh…”
My jaw drops a little as Hunter Maxwell stammers.
“It’s nothing you need to worry about right now,” he says. “Let’s just enjoy the weekend without bringing our shit into it, all right?”
“No. I’d like to know what’s on your phone that you felt the impulse to hide from me. Either you can show me, or I can pack my bag and go home, because now this is all I’m going to think about until I know what it is.”
“It’s nothing, Riley.” He shakes his head, looking a little irritated. “Some asshole posted a picture of you and Sherlock at the party. You guys are walking down the hall toward a bedroom with you in that short-ass skirt. He has his arm around you. It looks like you’re going to hook up, and someone sent it to me. That’s all.”
My stomach drops. “Oh.”
That was not what I was expecting.
“Don’t really want to talk about him,” Hunter says, irritation flickering through his gaze. “Figured you didn’t either, so…”
I look down at my paper, unsure what to say.
“Why does he have his hand on your hip?” Hunter suddenly asks, looking hard at the picture on his phone. “You said he tricked you.”
Now the shoe’s on the other foot, because I don’t have a satisfying answer to that question. “He did. I told you, it all happened so fast. I told him he shouldn’t touch me, that if you saw, you’d get the wrong idea. He did it anyway.”
“It doesn’t look like you’re exactly fighting him off,” Hunter remarks.
“I didn’t fight him off. That would’ve been ridiculous. It was a casual, fleeting touch. You’re looking at a snapshot of a split second, Hunter. A picture obviously posted by someone wanting to cause trouble.”
He kills the screen and puts his phone down on the table with a thud. His jaw is locked, his eyes angry as he opens up his laptop again.
“What are you doing?” I ask him.
“Starting this fucking homework,” he mutters. “Apparently, I have a lot of work to do.”
I’m partially relieved that he wants to set aside the Sherlock crap and get back to our homework, but I can see he’s mad, and I feel bad. Especially because I’m the one who pushed, but when he turned the screen like that… what was I supposed to think?
“Maybe you should write the letter instead,” I offer lightly, trying to bring his mood back down. “Less work that way.”
“Nah, I’m gonna rewrite the ending. I’ll have Gatsby’s neighbor Sherlock stop over for a night cap and his ass is going to get shot instead.”
Biting back a smile, I shake my head. “That’s terrible.”
“Well, he should’ve kept his fucking lips to himself.”
“He did,” I say lightly. “Unless he kissed Daisy?”
“Fuck Daisy.”
A thought occurs to me, one that whispered through my mind when he had such strong feelings about Gatsby and Daisy. I was reluctant to ask then, but his fuck Daisy sentiment makes it feel more imperative that I clear up the doubt in my own mind.
“I’m not your Daisy, right?”
His gaze flickers to mine. “Of course you’re not Daisy. Daisy is a vapid asshole who cares more about wealth and appearances than people. What part of that could possibly be you?”
“Okay, okay—I was just making sure.”
“I know they say there’s no such thing as a dumb question, but…”