Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 120326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120326 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 602(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
An artful grin splits his lips. “No,” he breathes, then leans in close to my ear and whispers, “Fuck it.”
The words are barely audible, but I hear them loud as though they’ve been blasted out of a pair of Marshall amps. And I thought I couldn’t handle it if he said kiss it.
With violent force I push him away from me, red rising in my cheeks. “For a while there you almost had me convinced you’d changed, Robert, but I was wrong. You’ve only gotten worse.”
And with that I pick up my empty bowl and dash from the room.
“Who is your best fucking friend in the whole wide world?” Sasha croons as she flounces into my room, clutching a bunch of tickets in her hand.
I’m still recovering from what happened with Robert earlier, so it takes me a moment to catch on and reply, “You are?”
“You bet your arse I am. Guess what I managed to snag us today?”
“Eh, tickets for something,” I say, taking a wild guess.
“Oh, not just tickets for something. I got us tickets for none other than the bloody closing ceremony of the Olympics.”
She drops down onto the end of my bed, and my mouth hangs open.
“Piss off, you did not!” I almost shout, snatching the tickets from her hand (four in total) and taking a closer look at them.
The Olympics are being held in London this summer. It’s difficult to go more than ten minutes without being reminded of that fact in one way or another, whether it’s being mentioned on TV or being blasted across a billboard. Not only that, but everyone knows that tickets for any one of the events being held are like gold dust. Never mind the closing ceremony, where some of the most iconic musicians in British history will likely be performing.
“I so did. My friend Natalie got them for me. Feel free to kiss my feet in gratitude,” she jokes.
“I’ll be glad to. Who are you going to give the other two tickets to?”
Sasha grins slyly. “I’ll have to see who bribes me the best before I can answer that.”
“What are you shouting about, Sash?” comes Robert’s voice as he steps casually into the room. He stands there for a moment, all innocence.
He’s acting like nothing at all happened between us earlier. I cannot believe he’s acting like nothing happened.
Sasha picks up the tickets and happily shows them to Robert, whose mouth hangs open.
“You jammy bitch!” he exclaims. “Who did you have to blow to get your hands on those?”
She scrunches up her face in disgust. “I did not blow anybody, fucker.”
She swipes back the tickets, probably before Robert gets it into his head to steal one.
“Well, where did you get them, then?”
“A girl from work gave them to me as a thank-you for filling in for her a couple of weeks ago. She’s got kids, so she’s not really into going to gigs and stuff like that.”
“Well, that’s lucky for you,” says Robert, dropping down onto the bed beside Sasha. “How was work today?”
I bristle at his proximity, not uttering a word.
Sasha lets out a sigh. “Busy as usual. By the way, I got an email from Jimmy. Did you not tell him I said I wasn’t interested?”
Robert laughs. “I did, actually. He must be persistent.”
“Great. That’s all I need.”
“Did you email him back?”
“Nope. I was about to during lunch, set him straight that it’s not happening, but then Alistair called me to see if I’m up for a trip to Brighton on Saturday. He says it’s going to be hot as hell, great beach weather. Oh, he also told me to ask you along.”
“I was with him at lunch. Why didn’t he ask me then?”
Sasha shrugs. “It must have slipped his mind.” She pauses then, studying her brother suspiciously. “What were you doing at Alistair’s today?”
“Dad wanted to go. You know we have lunch together on Mondays.”
Sasha turns to me. “You were working today, right, Lana?”
“Yep,” I answer, glancing at Robert for a very brief second before carefully avoiding his eyes.
“Did this little shit give you any trouble?” she asks me while simultaneously kicking Robert in the shin with her boot.
“Ow!” he complains, and when Sasha’s not looking, he mouths the words “I’m sorry” at me. I can’t tell if he means he’s sorry for being weird in the restaurant or for what he said to me down in the living room – or both. He’s never been the apologetic type, so it takes me by surprise.
I grin at Sasha and lie, “Not particularly.”
She smiles back at me. “Damn. I was hoping you’d say yes so I could kick his arse.”
Robert snorts. “You could try.”
“Is that a challenge?” Sasha questions, whipping her head back to him.
Robert gets up from the bed, and then he dives forward, grabs Sasha’s tickets out of her hand, and dashes from the room.
“Prick!” she shouts, jumping up and chasing after him.
I stand and walk to the door, calling, “Jesus, how old are you two?”
I hear them having some sort of a scuffle in Robert’s room. When I go to see what kind of seven colours of shit they’re kicking out of each other, I find that Sasha has Robert’s face pressed up against the mattress on his bed. She yanks the tickets back out of his hand and then sits on his shoulders.
“Has anyone ever mentioned how weird you both are?” I ask, leaning against the doorjamb.
Robert fakes it that he’s gasping for air. “Help me, Lana — my sister is a maniac. She beats on me all the time. That’s how I got my black eyes last week. She said if I told anyone she’d kill me.”
Sasha laughs. “Poor Robert, bested by a girl.”
“Forgive me if I’m against hitting women. Isn’t it obvious that I let you beat me?”
I can’t help giggling when he gives me an exhausted look and sticks out his tongue like a tired dog.
“Oh, put the poor bastard out of his misery, Sash. Come on, Eastenders is starting in a minute.”