Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63854 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 319(@200wpm)___ 255(@250wpm)___ 213(@300wpm)
I only sleep around because all the girls I’ve been in a relationship with always said they wanted to travel, but what they meant was shopping in Paris or having high tea in London. They weren’t interested in getting down and dirty.
So just because traveling’s a big part of my life, at some point in a relationship, I’d inevitably take a girl on a trip.
What can I say? It’s what I enjoy doing with a significant other. Some guys like to take their girls to the movies, I like to take my girl to . . . well, everywhere. That’s kind of the problem.
After a couple of European shopping trips, it’s normally just a matter of time until I’d take a girl to Delhi/Jakarta/Antarctica/Nairobi/Pyongyang and she’d get pick-pocketed/food poisoning/malaria/pawed at by dirty street kids/tired. And then she’d get mad at me. As if I wanted whatever happened to happen.
After a string of failed relationships, I realized what the problem was.
Those girls didn’t really want to go to those places. They were just doing it to humor me. So when something bad happened, they blamed me for it. Because they were doing it for me and not for themselves.
I grew tired of trying and failing, and decided not to try at all.
Don’t get me wrong. Variety is good. Variety is great. I know I’m lucky it’s easy for me to get variety. Not every guy gets offers without even trying like I do.
But what I really crave is depth. Quality, not quantity. A deep, almost spiritual connection.
Still, there’s no basis to my assessment of Ava Green’s personality. It’s just a gut feeling. It doesn’t make sense.
But something tells me she just might be . . .
Dare I say it?
. . .
The one.
I know, I know. It’s too soon. There’s no basis for me to say that. We talked sometimes when we were younger, but not much, and that was a long time ago.
Technically, Ava’s a stranger. I’ve only ever met adult Ava once. Which was only about ten minutes ago. When she was with her parents.
It’s not rational, I know.
Maybe it’s just wishful thinking.
Hell, it’s most likely just wishful thinking.
But Ava intrigues me. Maybe I’m insane and maybe I’m just hearing voices, but I have to find out what it is about her that calls out to my soul so loudly.
Noah
“What’s the plan tonight?” I ask Nathan, who’s driving.
He gives me the side-eye.
“What?”
I don’t know what he’s annoyed about. He won the coin toss, so we’re driving to Ashbourne in his car instead of mine.
I wish I didn’t have to leave my shiny new baby in the garage at home, but Liam would kill us if we rolled into town in two separate cars. That’s one extra car to worry about.
Mom and Dad each have a car. There’s Mason’s car. And this one.
There are seven of us. Mom, Dad, me, and my four brothers.
I know that sounds like a lot of people. But four cars for seven people who spend most of their time together anyway? Even Nathan and I have to admit that’s superfluous. Mom and Dad only have one two-car garage each.
Yes, my parents live in two different houses. And yes, they spend a lot of time together. Oh, and they’re also divorced.
Whenever Liam starts lecturing me about how I spend my money, I like to point out the fact that our parents spent an arm and a leg on the most ridiculous, the most useless divorce ever.
They used to bicker all the time when all seven of us were living under one roof. So they got divorced. Mom got the house and Dad moved out.
At first, everything was normal. The house got quieter—or as quiet as it could get, with five boys inside. They didn’t want to separate us, so we spent one week with Mom and the next week with Dad, and the week after that with Mom. You get the picture.
But it didn’t take long for them to start lingering when they dropped us off at each other’s houses. After that came the giggling, the staring, and the “accidental” touching.
The five of us, in our early teens at the time, watched with disbelief.
I was the one who found Dad sitting at the breakfast table one morning. Eating cereal in his boxers. With hickeys all over his neck.
Jesus. My parents were acting like a couple of teenagers.
I gave Dad a flat stare. This wasn’t exactly unexpected. Still, I sighed at the ridiculousness of it all.
“Does this mean you’re moving back in?” I asked as I stood in my striped pajamas by the table.
“Oh. Hey. Morning, Nathan.” He always mixed up our names when he was nervous.
“The name’s Noah. Answer the question.”
“Uh . . . That is not . . . I don’t . . . Your mother and I haven’t decided.”