Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“No, no,” she said, holding the towel she used to dry off with to her forehead. “Big Bird is the name of my mobile home. My dad calls me Little Bird, so I thought it would be funny to call the school bus Big Bird, and well, ow,” she groaned, touching her head a little too hard.
Mobile home? Big Bird?
What?
“Let me see,” I said, walking toward her.
She hesitated for a moment. “You’re not a serial killer, are you?”
“If I were a serial killer, would you hop out of the boat right now?”
She glanced around and narrowed her eyes. “No. That water’s actually pretty cold, and I don’t want to get your sweats wet.”
This woman was wild.
“Sorry you saw my”—she gestured to her whole body—“bits.”
“Don’t worry. I was more concerned about you not dying than I was with checking out your body.”
She placed a hand on her hip and smiled. “That’s very non-serial-killer of you. What’s your name?”
“Theo.”
The smile stretched. “I’m Willow.”
I blinked. “Okay.”
That was the first time I really studied her lips, outside of me trying to bring her back to damn life. It was the first time I actually studied her. She was a beautiful Black woman. She might’ve been the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life. She had deep chocolate irises, stunning brown skin, and a smile that looked like it was drafted in heaven. Her hair was soaked but long, and you could see the curls in it, too.
She kept smiling.
It was a good smile.
I didn’t smile back. I didn’t care enough to offer one up.
“Sit down and hold on. We should get you stitched up,” I grumbled, a bit annoyed that my solitude was no longer existent. It was pretty rude of her to almost die during my alone time.
Once we got back to my place, I turned on every light in the house. As we walked into my living room, I hurriedly grabbed the clothes and beer bottles scattered through the space.
Willow sat in my recliner and made herself comfortable. I had a feeling she was the kind of woman who made herself comfortable wherever she’d planted her feet. Then again, I also had a feeling she never planted her feet for long. We were different in that way. She seemed like a wanderer. I was more into staying still.
“Let me change out of these wet clothes, then I’ll stitch you up.”
After drying myself off in my bedroom and tossing on my own set of sweats, I gathered some items from my first aid kit and headed to the living room to find Willow still sitting in that recliner.
She sat straighter and leaned in my direction, resting her elbows on her knees. “You know how to stitch up things?”
“Sure do. Had a good teacher.”
She leaned in closer. “Then by all means. Stitch me up.”
Was she not going to ask more questions than that? Fucking hell, this woman wasn’t the brightest light bulb. Luckily for her, I wasn’t some psycho, but the way she allowed me to take her back to my place and put literal stitches in her forehead was foolish. Her stranger-danger meter must’ve been off. She walked into my house like we were old friends.
I pulled a chair closer to her and took a seat. After cleaning up her wound, I began placing the stitches as she sat there with her eyes closed.
“So tell me, Theodore—”
“Theo,” I corrected. “Just Theo.”
“So tell me, Just Theo,” she began again. “What was the worst day of your life?”
I huffed, shaking my head in disbelief at the question. “Not interested in deep talks.”
“I don’t like small talk.”
“I don’t like any talk.”
“Are you antisocial?”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“I’m social-social.”
“Shocking,” I replied sarcastically. Even though she was beautiful, I wished she’d stop talking. I was still stuck on how stupid she was for jumping into the lake at two in the damn morning. “You know, you could’ve died from that dive,” I scolded, unable to keep that thought to myself. Which was odd… I was almost always able to keep my thoughts to myself.
“Meh.” She shrugged. “Death’s coming for us all.”
“No need to rush the process.”
She bit her bottom lip and tilted her head slightly. “What can I say? I’m a speed racer.”
I tilted her head back into place. Damn this woman. What was her deal? She kept her eyes on me, and that left me feeling such unease. I felt dizzy whenever she stared. I didn’t like the way she looked at me. It was as if she were trying to read my locked-away pages.
“You keep to yourself, don’t you?” she asked.
“Yup.”
“Are you lonely?”
“Never.”
“What happened to make you want to keep to yourself?”
“Nothing.”
“Yes, it did.”
“What makes you think something happened to me?”
“The way your eyes look.”
I sat back a bit and rested my elbows on my kneecaps. “And how exactly do my eyes look?”