Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 65683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65683 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
His girlfriend poked her head around the shower curtain too. “I think you still love her.”
“Wait? Why are you using my bathroom?”
“We traded.” Brady sighed. “She didn’t want to have her soap next to yours or something like that. Oh and she did mention war and body parts. Most of it is kind of fuzzy, especially when Tru started making hand motions that one hundred percent seemed extremely violent.”
His girlfriend nodded. “I told her to just get it all out.”
Fuck. “Get it all out? As in?”
“Attack.” She shrugged. “Clearly, you’re a problem, and she needs to feel.”
Brady grinned and pointed at her. “Psych major.”
“Perfect!” I yelled.
“Whoa, hey.” Brady held his hands down. “Taper the anger. You know, I think therapy would be a really good thing for—”
“Suck my dick!” I stormed off back to my bedroom. Okay, she was pissed and apparently on the prowl to end me.
I needed her for my grades.
She needed me for money.
It was going to be fine.
Totally fine.
I repeated this to myself the entire time of our study session and knew I was in even deeper shit when I showed up at our normal table.
And it was someone else.
“Hey.” I dropped my bag on the table. “Is Tru around?”
The guy cracked his knuckles. “She’s taking the day off, so you have the blessed occasion of having the number one tutor in the university help you with your history. I swear if you make any cunt-like jokes, I’ll walk. If you smell like alcohol, I’ll walk. If you point out a hot girl and laugh, I’ll walk.”
I held up my hand.
“I get the picture. You like walking.” I slumped into my chair. “Let’s get this over with.”
He shrugged. “Cool, sounds good. My name's Dennis.”
“You look more like a Kevin.”
He flipped open his book. “I get that often. It’s weird.”
“Because you look like a child. A child who got left alone at Christmas.”
“So…” He ignored me. “Chapter twelve.”
“Shit.”
“No, actually, it’s about the chemistry between—”
I clap a hand over his mouth. “Let me read the chapter, then you speak. Ignore my rules, and I’ll be the one walking after pulling your spleen out of your throat, mmkay?”
His quick nod was all I needed.
I mean at least that was what I told myself when I knew what I really needed was Tru.
CHAPTER 23
VAUGHN
“Jesus, man,” my friend exclaimed. “Where did your balls go, man? Did you just hand them over to her?”
He laughed from deep within his chest, and I resisted the urge to hit him.
“Why don’t you get the turquoise birthday cake because, like you said, it’s her favorite color.”
I smacked him on the chest. “It is, and it’s her eighteenth birthday. I want it to be special.”
“So you’ve said.”
Shaking my head, I paid for my stuff and then dropped him off at the beach. I was surprising Tru with balloons, gifts, and a cake. Knowing it was the first time she’d experience anything like this.
By the time I made it to her house, it was after three, and I knocked on her door.
My heart fluttered, my stomach dropped, and my mouth parted the moment she greeted, “Hey, there.”
“I can’t stop thinking about you,” I expressed out of nowhere, obviously warming her heart. With that, I grabbed her hand and tugged her toward me to kiss her lips. Then I showed her why I was really there.
She instantly saw all the balloons and cake I’d been hiding on the bed of my truck. I decked it out for her.
“I thought we could go for a ride.”
She beamed. “I’d love that.”
I drove us over to a private part of the beach for elite residents only. I wasn’t even supposed to be there, but I wanted to make the day special for her. If I noticed one thing about Tru, it was how much she truly loved the ocean.
Tru
“Did you dress up for me?” He grabbed my hand to help me up onto the bed of his truck.
“What? This old thing?”
He laughed, pretty much catapulting me in front of him as if I weighed nothing. “You look beautiful.”
Before I could thank him, he effortlessly gripped the back of my neck and brought my lips to meet his without any hesitation whatsoever, like we’d been kissing our entire lives. Van could kiss.
His lips were passionate.
Tender.
I was under his spell, and there, under the sun, I didn’t want to leave this little bubble in which we’d suddenly found ourselves.
Pecking my lips one last time, he rested his forehead on mine. Looking deep into my eyes, he murmured out of nowhere, “I missed you.”
Those three little words caught us both by surprise.
My head couldn’t catch up to my feelings fast enough, and I blurted, “I missed you too.” Quickly, I swallowed the lump in my throat, pulling away from him. I needed a second to catch my breath and reel in my emotions that were getting the best of me.