Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 76347 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76347 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 382(@200wpm)___ 305(@250wpm)___ 254(@300wpm)
Okay, so I think I have a crush. A big, big crush.
I know I’ve been standing here practically gaping and drooling, twisting my hair all over my finger, stone-cold silent, and about to miss my opportunity because I’m scared and shy and so floored. “Yeah!” That comes out way too enthusiastic. “Sure. I could meet you in town tomorrow if you give me the address.”
“Can I text you? To the number that you called me with?”
Somewhere in the neighborhood of ten thousand tingles shoot up my spine at his words. “Sure.” Oh my god, he’s going to text me. As in, send messages to my phone. My. Phone. Messages.
“Good. It’s a date, then. Tomorrow at eleven? We could get lunch after.”
My face heats up hotter than the freshly cleaned out and polished wood stove in the kitchen will get on a hot winter’s day. I mean a cold winter’s day. Holy camel humps, my mind is more scrambled than eggs.
I nod until my head feels like it’s going to snap off and roll away. Atlas returns the smile and walks off casually, gracefully, eye-watering, mouth-wateringly, temptingly, and sinfully—oh my god, too many adverbs—looking lovely.
I watch until his black sedan is out of sight, hidden in a cloud of gravel dust from the road.
He didn’t mean a real date, did he? There was no way. He was just using the old expression for a meeting between two people at a time and a place. Could even be more people. As in, save the date. Or the way a business meeting gets marked on a certain date on the calendar. A date is just a time. A day. A setting. It’s not like a date with a capital DATE and a side of hands meeting, lips scalding, bodies melding.
Ugh, but still. I know I’ll be super lucky if I’m not a shaggy mess by tomorrow because, really, who could sleep knowing they have a date (small letters) with the world’s most AMAZING (large letters) man?
Pretty sure he’s a real god, fallen straight from the sky. Atlas.
Time for me to brush up on my Greek mythology.
What? I’m not falling hard and fast or anything. Yeah, I’m all good over here. For real. Straight-up sensible, boring, book-reading, book-loving, plain Jane loners like me don’t have crushes, and we don’t fall. Not hard. Not fast. Not. At. All.
CHAPTER 7
Atlas
Well, it was a good plan until Granny got wind of what I was doing this morning, mostly because we were all renting the same house. She appeared in the basement that Orion and I share and sat on the couch dressed all in black with her hair done up in the usual knotted twist as she pegged me with her Granny laser beam eyes, asked me why I was up so early, and why I had such a goofy grin on my face if my little house project was done.
Granny can be super intimidating, even when she’s smiling. Even though she looks like a well-dressed, quite pretty older woman who is innocent and sweet, she’s actually a badass, Glock-wielding, hacking Granny beneath those shiny layers, and I know all about her many, many skills that most people would never guess at.
She’d had my number since the start of the house project, and I couldn’t hide from her. I had to tell her the truth that I was going furniture shopping and antiquing. Maybe with a side of lunch after. I expected her to be stormy about it, as livid as she was about me getting involved with the project in the first place, but instead, she stayed calm, clapped her hands, smiled in delight, and informed me that she’d love to join me, asking how did I know and thanking me for the invite.
So, now she’s riding shotgun in the car with me as I drive to the antique store. I might not have prepared Victoria for this in advance, and I feel shitty about my deception.
“Granny, please. No Glocks, no intimidation, no thousand and one questions. You’re just a nice old granny this morning. Please don’t let the badassery slip through the cracks.”
Granny appears totally affronted. She mock-gasps at me, her mouth a little round O of surprise and indignation. “I have no idea what you mean, my lovely, sweet, caring grandson, who is also going to be on his best behavior and not let the badassery slip through the cracks. Oh, my home-building, home-renovating, own-his-own-company, builder grandson.”
I grind my molars. Hard. “Grannnnyyyyyy…”
She shrugs. “Don’t get your panties in a twist, Atlas. I’m good. I just want to meet her. This girl who stole your heart.”
I slam on the brakes right in the middle of the street, and horns blare around us. I don’t even bother to pick my jaw up from the floor, even though it makes conversing rather difficult. “Excuse me?”