Total pages in book: 28
Estimated words: 26471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 132(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 88(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26471 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 132(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 88(@300wpm)
And I don’t want to talk to anyone but Bobby.
I don’t want to be looked at or touched. I don’t want anyone near me.
A thought enters my head that turns my blood to ice. What if Bobby went to a nightclub and danced with another girl?
I would burn it down.
My throat locks up and my pulse rollicks.
I’m almost dizzy with possessiveness over him. The need to see him, be with him.
I’m just as obsessed with Bobby as he is with me, aren’t I?
I’ve been struggling against that truth, but now that I have some distance, it’s impossible to pretend like my body isn’t going through withdrawals. He hasn’t been inside of me for one day and my sex feels heavy and needy. My breasts ache to feel the stroke of his tongue, the ownership of his capable hands. I can barely breathe, I need his weight on top of me so badly, all that inked brawn pressing me down, his eyes riveted on mine.
“Are you okay, Mandy?” Kandice asks as we get in line for the club.
Both of them are taking out their fake IDs and I do the same, preparing to show them to the bouncer. “Yes, I’m good.” I swallow hard. “I’ve just never been to a club before.”
“Oh, my goodness,” Becca sings, ruffling my hair. “So innocent.”
“Not after tonight,” Kandice laughs, high-fiving her friend.
Dread makes my palms clammy. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Becca cranes her neck to see the front of the line. “It means, the goal is to move on from your stalker boyfriend, right? Find someone who isn’t crazy?”
“Oh, I don’t know…” Becca draws out. “A little birdie told me they were getting pretty close in the library the other night. Maybe she doesn’t want to get over him. Maybe she wants to stay under him.”
Heat floods my face and I can barely look them in the eye. “I didn’t…I didn’t know you guys knew about that. You didn’t mention it on the drive…”
“We were waiting for you to tell us,” Kandice says, sticking out her lower lip. “Maybe we’re not such good friends, after all.”
We’re almost to the front of the line and all I want to do is run away. “We are friends. It’s just that this thing with Bobby can be complicated. I don’t really know how to talk about him.”
“Maybe we should talk about how you stole him out from under us,” Becca says, her sweet smile in direct contrast to her biting accusation.
An accusation that makes no sense.
According to them, Bobby never gave anyone the time of day until me. Meaning, one of them going home with him wasn’t a possibility to begin with.
“I…what?” I look between the two of them. “What do you mean I stole him?”
“Oh, come on.” Kandice fluffs her hair. “You knew we thought he was hot. We were drooling over him.”
“We basically called dibs. Then you went over and threw yourself at him.”
“No…I tripped—”
“ID please,” the bouncer booms behind them.
In that moment, I make the decision to go back up to the room. To stay there until it’s time to drive back in the morning, but Becca plucks the identification card from my fingers and hands it to the bouncer. He nods, hands it back, and I’m dragged into the darkness. The deafening music. The sea of people.
It’s suddenly very clear why they wanted to bring me to Atlantic City.
They want me to move on so they can pursue Bobby themselves.
A laugh tickles my throat and emerges a little hysterical.
“What’s so funny?” Becca calls over the noise.
I shake my head. “This. You. All of it.” I take a deep breath and let the feelings I have for Bobby run utterly wild. I’ve been keeping them at bay for my mental health, but as soon as I unlock the gates of my resistance, I’m lost to the abyss. “We’re soul mates. There is no one for him but me and there is no one for me but him.” A sound huffs out of me. “You think you could break us up? Nothing can.”
Kandice sucks her teeth. “Whatever. Relationships don’t last.”
“Ours will.”
Becca’s smile is laced with venom. “We’ll see how he feels when we tell him you got a little out of control with the partying in Atlantic City.”
This whole night, everything about it, is suddenly ridiculous.
I’ve been brought here for a pointless game when I could have been home with Bobby. My Bobby, who is trying to change for me. Even though it’s hard for him to let go of his control, he trusted me enough to let me come here without him. We’re making so much progress—and that’s a lot more than I can say about these friendships. There are good friends out there, waiting for me to find them, but these girls aren’t them.