Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 121764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121764 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 487(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
The corner of her mouth ticked up, just a bit, just enough for me to know she was looking at me. The way her cheeks flushed in the next breath confirmed my suspicion, and I felt that sensation in my chest grow even stronger.
My little Nova.
I couldn’t wait to have her alone again.
I felt the eyes of someone else on me, too, and when I looked over my shoulder, Will Perry was glaring at me like I was the poor winger trying to score on him. He whistled through his teeth, calling Vince’s attention, and signaled with his finger in the air that it was time to wrap it up.
His glare never left me, not until he turned and started slowly walking to the next tee.
• • •
We were actually doing pretty decent by the time we made it to the seventeenth hole. We weren’t going to win it all, but we had a shot at second or third place, and that would still send a good chunk of change home to Tampa. We were playing for the Tampa Bay Babes Compassion Project, an organization Maven had started that benefited various areas of the community.
We were in the golf cart on our way to battle it out at the last two holes when Vince let out a breathy sigh. “I’m worried about my sister.”
The words were like ice shoved straight into my boxers.
I stilled, not daring to be the first to comment, because I knew there’d be enough shake in my voice to give me away. I calmly took a drink from my water bottle, instead.
“I was meaning to ask about her,” Carter called from where he and Daddy P were sitting on the back of the cart. “When she showed up at your house crying last week… that didn’t look good.”
“She left the next day,” Vince said. “Which, honestly, wasn’t surprising. She doesn’t stay in one place for long. But fuck, I’m just worried she’s going to go back to that loser she was messing around with.”
“She won’t.”
Fuck.
Every head spun in my direction when I said the words, and I shrugged, hoping none of them noticed how fast my heart was beating.
“I hung out with her that whole night in Austin, remember?” I said. “She knew then that he was a lost cause. My bet is she just needed one night to cry and then she was moving on.”
Carter made a face like he was considering that option while Will stared lasers into the back of my head.
“That’s pretty on par for her,” Vince grumbled. “I love her so much. You guys know that. We’ve been close our whole lives. But the older we get, the less I feel like I know how to help her.” He shook his head. “I swear to God, I’m going to have to start vetting the guys she dates. She’s careless when it comes to that — always has been. This isn’t the first time she’s showed up at my door heartbroken.”
My skin prickled, hands rolling into fists, but I clamped my mouth shut harder.
“Maybe she’s a hopeless romantic,” Carter offered.
Vince snorted, parking the cart when we made it to the hole. “More like just hopeless. She’s always been a little lost. I think she just tries to find herself in any guy who gives her attention.”
I gritted my teeth, hopping off the cart and rounding it to where Vince was slowly climbing out from behind the steering wheel. I’d had enough of him talking shit about her, especially since he was clearly fucking blind to how she’d lived in his shadow their whole goddamn lives.
She wasn’t lost — she just wasn’t like him.
Somewhere inside me, my common sense screamed for me to calm the fuck down. But I was already seeing red, and I opened my mouth to give him a piece of my mind when a hand slammed against my chest so hard it knocked the wind out of me.
Vince and Carter both turned with the sound of my breath leaving me in an oof, their eyebrows inching into their hairlines.
But Daddy P stood directly in front of me, his hand still on my chest, eyes murderous as he nodded his head toward the hole.
“You guys get started. I need to talk to Brittzy,” he said.
Vince and Carter both made sounds like I’d been called to the principal’s office, each of them flicking my ear or clapping my shoulder as they passed. When they were out of range, Will dropped his hand, but his scowl was just as present.
“Do you want to die, or are you really this fucking stupid?”
I swallowed, folding my arms over my chest. “I don’t know what—”
“Don’t,” he warned. “You’ve been with Grace this whole time, haven’t you?”
All the blood draining from my face must have been all the answer he needed, because he laughed through his nose, looking over to where Carter and Vince were at the tee before he brought that menacing gaze back to me.