Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 191421 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 957(@200wpm)___ 766(@250wpm)___ 638(@300wpm)
At this, he turns at me with a sharp sigh. “You listen to anything that I just said?”
“What?” Then it hits me. “Oh! Sorry. You were saying something.”
He was.
Shit.
While surveying the scene, he was telling me something. And I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t catch a single thing. I totally blanked him out.
I go to apologize but he mutters a curse before saying, “I want you to pay attention now, all right —”
“Okay. Sorry.”
“I’ve got someone,” he begins sharply, letting me know that my interruption wasn’t appreciated at all, “babysitting him right now. Which means he’s sober like he was before. But this time, he’s also alone. And he’s going to stay that way. I’ll make sure of that. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”
I nod.
Because I do understand. He’s saying that he not only paid someone — again — to look after Lucas, he’s also going to make sure that no girls arrive at the scene.
Isn’t he?
“No one’s going to bother you this time,” he continues, proving me right, his features rippling with residual anger on my behalf, from the other night. “You’re going to talk and he’s going to have to listen. Even if I have to fucking tie him to a tree to make that happen.” Then, muttering to himself, “Actually, maybe I should anyway. Things would’ve been a fuck of a lot easier if I had.”
“How did you become friends, Lucas and you?”
Given that he’s all business right now and he hated that I was distracted before, this wasn’t a wise question to ask.
But as I’ve already said, there’s so much to discover about him.
So much to learn, and I just can’t contain myself now.
I have to know.
Everything.
Of course, that doesn’t mean that he’ll tell me.
But then he does. “On the school playground.”
My eyes go wide at this morsel of information that he’s thrown me.
“He was new and so some kids were picking on him,” he finishes.
“And?”
“And so I picked on them back. As in, literally picked them up and threw them.”
“Holy shit.”
“I was a big kid.” He shrugs. “It also kinda helped that they were already scared of me.”
I don’t think it’s possible for my eyes to go any wider, but they do.
They totally do, because.
Because.
“You saved him,” I whisper over the loud drumming of my heart.
His features scrunch up in something like disgust. “Fuck no. I was a bully too. Only my targets were other bullies who picked on someone smaller than them. But same difference.”
I shake my head. “I think you totally saved him.”
He sighs sharply. “Yeah, and my reward was a week-long suspension.”
“Saved him.”
“Because prior history of violence. Not the first time I’d saved someone like that.”
“Saved,” I insist. “Him.”
He closes his eyes as if he can’t take it anymore. “Oh, Jesus.”
“I changed my mind,” I tell him.
His eyes snap open. “About what?”
“You’re not the bandit.”
“What?”
“You’re Robin Hood.”
He opens and closes his plush mouth, as if wanting to say something but not being able to. I guess he thinks I’m too ridiculous for words.
But it’s okay.
I don’t mind.
Because I know I’m not.
I’m very, very non-ridiculous when I say, “Of bullies. Because you’re the bully who saves kids from other bullies. So you’re the bully who bullies other bullies.”
“Yeah, very poetic and a fucking mouthful,” he bites out, displeased. “Can we please, for the motherfucking love of God, cut the drama now?”
“It is poetic,” I say, nodding. “And a mouthful. So is ‘ex-boyfriend’s ex-best friend,’ but that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Also I can’t cut the drama. I’m a writer.”
His chest moves abruptly, on a sharp breath. “Look —”
“And maybe sometimes bad boys can’t help it either. Saving people.”
His eyes narrow and I smile.
Although he is right.
It’s time to cut it and switch gears.
“Will you be watching me then?” I ask. “With him.”
Immediately, his displeased looks goes away and he answers, “Yeah.”
Like it never even occurred to him to not.
Not for a single second.
And it probably didn’t.
“The whole time, right?”
I sound needy. I know that.
Under any other circumstances or with any other person, I’d be embarrassed.
But not with him.
Not when he jerks out a determined nod even faster than his earlier reply.
I nod too. “Okay, I guess I’ll go now, and find him.”
But before I go, I give him this, this one last thing.
That I instinctively know he wants.
“It’s Watermelon Sugar.”
His eyes drop to my mouth because he already knows what I’m talking about. That I’m telling him the name of my lipstick.
He keeps his gaze on it for a bit.
As if to memorize the shade of it, different from Desert Rose, which I wore the last time. This one’s a brighter shade of pink with some red mixed in.
When he’s done, he steps back.
Like he did the other night, putting himself in the background so I can focus on his best friend.