Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 103102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“It’s better to spare everyone the pain of a hard conversation.” Lexi shakes her head as if to say why would I want to tell the guy he’s making me wait too long? Hard conversations are right up there with commitment on the list of things Lexi does not want to do.
Does she really have to end things, though? That’s not good for us. That isn’t going to convince Willa to invest. But I can’t force Lexi to stay with the guy, either. I don’t want to force her to stay with the guy, really, if she doesn’t want to be with him. I need to back off a bit and let her breathe.
“It’s your relationship,” I concede. “Your choice.”
She nods. “And the app?”
“We’ll think of something,” I say.
She nods okay and moves into the kitchen.
I fix tea for both of us. Lexi takes hers to the patio. I bring mine to Dad’s study.
For an hour, I disappear into my favorite place: work. Is there anything better than dissolving into what you do?
I don’t love pitching the product or negotiating with investors, but I absolutely love programming.
It’s the one place everything makes sense.
My flow fades as the noise picks up. Someone is downstairs, setting up the bar. That means it’s about three hours until the party starts.
I can see the scene from Dad’s window. There’s a tall guy in the backyard, talking to Lexi, who’s sitting by the pool in one of her pink bikinis—
Wait.
Is that guy wearing a leather jacket?
Caterers don’t wear leather jackets. And the men from Dad’s company absolutely don’t wear leather jackets.
There’s no bow tie, either.
The caterers at Dad’s parties always wear bow ties.
I look closer—
What? That can’t be.
No…
It is.
The tall guy in the leather jacket isn’t a helpful stranger.
That’s River Beau, the boy next door. The extremely dorky, totally uncool boy next door.
Only he’s no longer a dweeb. He’s smoking hot.
For a moment, I just stare. Take him in. Process all the changes. His muscular physique, his confident manner, his lack of glasses, his… Is that a tattoo? Damn. He’s like Clark Kent in his Superman costume. Still River, just different. Better? Maybe. The way a man looks has never been the most important thing to me. He could be a hot asshole now, for all I know. He’s been living in New York. That can change a person, and clearly has, at least on the outside.
But even after all these years, he also clearly still wants Lexi. The way he’s looking at her is too familiar, reminding me of when we were all teenagers.
And now that he’s a hunk, Lexi is staring back. I know that look on her face, too.
Shit.
She’s found the perfect antidote for her cold feet. The ideal distraction from her dry spell. I could see her dumping Jake—dumping her future—in a rash, rush need to quench her thirst with River.
Oh, hell no.
It’s my job, as her older sister, to stop her from making that mistake. To save her relationship—and the app.
Engagement jokes aside, Willa was clear: the investors need a poster couple, and what better poster couple is there than one of the sisters who created the app and a handsome employment attorney dating steadily for six months?
Lexi and Jake are it.
This is happening.
And the “extreme makeover” edition of the boy-next-door is not fucking it up for us.
Chapter Three
River
After a decade spent living in the world’s greatest city, New York, the Huntington house is both smaller and grander than I remember it.
The sheer size defies my imagination.
This place is a castle, with apartments, a pool, and a rose garden. And it’s completely lacking the history and taste of an actual castle. Or, say, a brownstone on the Upper East Side. A four-story apartment building in the Village. Even compared to one of those new buildings in the Financial District, the place feels too new. Only it also feels too dated.
As if it’s stuck in its strange mix of seventies original construction and nineties McMansion grandeur. Red tile roofs, white paint, wide windows, rectangular pool.
Well, there’s no arguing with the pool.
And there’s certainly no arguing with the beauty of Lexi Huntington.
Even after ten years and three thousand miles of space between us, as soon as I see her, I fall under her spell immediately. I tried to forget her, and for a while, I thought I had. But now…
She fits perfectly into her surroundings. She’s the vision of the ideal California woman—busty, sun-kissed, friendly—in the ideal California setting. A beige patio chair, under an umbrella, soaking in all the shade on a cloudy day.
And the pool. All that azure water casting highlights on her gorgeous face.
She smiles as she removes her round sunglasses. “Hey.”
My heart thuds against my chest. Hey. That’s all it takes.
Ten years without seeing or hearing her and I’m swooning over a friendly hello. I can’t help it. There’s something to Lexi beyond colors and shapes. Beyond a linear narrative.