Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 46095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46095 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 230(@200wpm)___ 184(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
“Thank you, Nolan.”
We sat in silence for a minute as we drove, both of us clearly realizing the full weight of what’d just happened back at the bar.
“Look, can I drive you back to your dorm or something?” he finally said.
I frowned, looking down at my lap again.
“I— I don’t live in the dorms.”
I don’t live anywhere.
To say I’d come to college on a budget was being generous. Really, I’d come to college broke as a joke. What’d helped was that since I was twelve, I’d grown up in the town next door, living with my Grams after my parents had passed. So, I’d never had to pay to live in the dorms, which was great. Even better, my Grams was awesome, and as a surprise graduation present before I started my freshman year at college, she’d gotten a guy from her church to renovate the tiny little apartment above the garage, all for me.
“You’re in college now, hon! You need your space!”
And as much as I loved her, having my own space had been great, especially when I’d been juggling a full course load, late night studying, and a part time job at the campus coffee shop. It was a great arrangement for my freshman year at college, but then, right before sophomore year started, the whole thing came crashing down.
My Grams was a proud woman, and part of that had been never letting me or really anyone know how sick she was. Losing her — yeah, that’d been hard. I’d loved growing up with her, and on top of that, she was the last of my family after my parents, which meant I was alone then. From there though, it’d just gotten worse.
Besides hiding her illness, Grams had also hidden then massive debt she still owed on the house. When she passed, the bank swooped in, and very suddenly, I didn’t just find myself without a family, I found myself homeless.
It’d been two months since I’d had to leave Grams’s house, and I was reaching the end of my lifeline. I’d juggled staying with a few friends at their dorms for a few weeks. I’d spent the odd weekend with my good friend Kenzie, who lived off campus in that huge house. But then, her situation was….complicated. And by complicated, I mean she lived with two boyfriends — two much older, stupidly good looking guys who adored her. I wasn’t put off by it — far from it. What they had was something special and loving and amazing.
But, maybe I’d inherited more of my Grams’s stubbornness and pride than I thought. I knew she’d have let me move in forever if I asked, but I couldn’t. And so I never asked. Actually, I’d kind of hidden how dire my living situation was from her and any of the other friends I’d stayed with. I’d even spent a night or two in the backseat of my beat up old SUV parked in the school parking lot.
Eventually, for whatever stupid reason, it’d been Matt, who I’d dated briefly the year before, that I’d gone back to. I mean, the guy was a total prick, and the relationship had been over almost before it began. I have no idea why the hell I turned to him as my last option once I was running out of friends to lie to and places to stay, but I had. And that’s where I’d been the last week.
But, don’t go thinking Matt was being this noble, chivalrous guy “letting me” stay at his apartment off campus. Yeah, no. Since the first night I’d come over with my backpack and pathetically small suitcase, he’d made it pretty clear that he’d be needing a certain something in return for his “kindness.”
Barf.
Also, I had zero intentions of being the kind of girl who sleeps with someone for a place to live. Ick. And certainly not with Matt. I’d played excuses for the last week — that I was sick, that I was on my period — but that night, at the bar he’d made me come to, it’d come to a head.
It was Matt — drunk, aggressive, and trying to drag me to the bathroom to screw me Matt — who I’d been running from when I’d gone crashing right into the gorgeous, tall stranger with the haunting blue eyes through his mask, and the arms made out of steel that’d wrapped around me. The beautiful stranger who’d taken my breath away, swept me off my feet, and made me lose my freaking mind.
I’d never acted like that before — not once. I’d never been so insanely impulsive that I’d just gone and kissed a stranger, let alone what happened after. But whatever it was about him, I’d lost my damn mind. Maybe it was that when I fell into him and his arms went around me, I’d felt safer than I’d ever felt before. Maybe it was because the feel of his body against mine and his hands on me lit a fire inside of me I’d never felt before.