Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 81333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
I don’t sit. I pace. Back and forth I go in front of the window that overlooks the lake. The pale pink curtains that have hung in this room since I picked them out when I was seven years old flutter in the wind from the open window.
Before I can make sense of anything, the door flies open. I whirl around to see Poppy standing in the doorway.
“You did not have to pee,” she says flatly. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing is wrong.”
“What did you see? Don’t tell me you were looking up Callum’s vacation,” she sighs. “Damn it, Layla.”
“I wasn’t looking up Callum or his fucking vacation. Here,” I say, thrusting the computer at her. “Open it. Passcode is ‘milkshake’ with a one instead of the i.”
“Chocolate or vanilla?”
“Just look,” I sigh, rolling my eyes.
The exact moment she gets to the “honey-haired” piece is obvious because her eyes bug out. “Ooohhh . . .”
“I’m not mad,” I say, more to myself than to her. “It’s not that at all. It’s expected. It’s the natural order of things. I just stupidly forgot that and thought he was all about me this weekend, which, I guess, is a part of his charm and I’m totally capable of understanding that because I’m an adult,” I say, throwing my hand through the air and knocking a candle off my dresser. It shatters on the floor and breaks into a handful of pieces. “Starting now.”
Poppy puts the computer carefully on the bed. “You can be mad.”
“I’m not mad!”
“You’re not mad,” she says, trying to not show her amusement. “You’re . . . irritated.”
“I’m not irritated either. I’m . . . I’m . . . I’m going home.”
Now she laughs. “Because we’re adults, right?”
“Yes,” I say, stomping to the closet and pulling out the few things I bothered to hang up. “I’m an adult and I can go home so I don’t have to look at his smug face for the next couple of days.”
“Maybe he’s not smug.”
“Maybe not,” I say simply, shoving my things into my suitcase. “But if you want the truth, I’m a little embarrassed.”
“At what?”
I fall onto the bed, the adrenaline from the last few minutes catching up with me. Looking at my best friend, I feel the fight wane. “I’m embarrassed at myself.”
My friend sits beside me. “Why would you be? It got you to stop thinking about Dickface and got you off—how many times? Five?”
“Five that time. I haven’t told you the rest,” I sigh. “But that’s not the point.”
“No, the point is there’s nothing for you to be embarrassed about.”
“I know that. I do. I’m a grown woman and he’s most definitely a man,” I whimper. “But maybe it would’ve been nice to think about this two weeks from now and not wonder who came before me and who came after.”
“You mean that figuratively, right?”
“Shut up,” I whine. “Was that girl texting him while we were at the Festival? Did he see her there? Will he see her when we leave?”
“So what if he does?”
Reality settles in atop the embarrassment and twinge of self-pity. He will see other women. I’ll see other men. But still.
“Maybe it would’ve been nice not to feel like I was a point on the scoreboard,” I sigh.
“You don’t know that’s what it is.”
“Oh, I do. At least number two.” My head hangs, my chin almost touching my chest. The position makes my neck pain rear its ugly head again, the twinge making me grimace. “I just don’t want to look at him, Pop. I don’t want to look at him and know I was ‘Saturday and Sunday,’ you know? I need a little dignity.”
She pulls me into a quick hug and then stands. “We go home.” Marching to the door, she stops before she pulls it open. “And I know you don’t want details, but your brother promised to take me on the boat tonight and do very, very wicked things to me. You are the only person I’d leave that invitation for, but I might never forgive you. Just so you know.”
“I owe you.”
“Ha,” she says, pulling the door open. “You owe me twenty.”
Branch
Settled.
What a terrifying fucking word.
It’s not a bad feeling, though, as I stretch out. My muscles are relaxed, my cock satisfied, which is a miracle in and of itself.
I haven’t ever felt this relaxed—not even on vacation in the Dominican Republic last year with a model whose name started with an L.
There’s something about this place that just digs into your bones and takes over everything . . . and there’s something about that girl that has taken over my brain.
I don’t know what it is, exactly. Sure, she’s beautiful. Her sense of humor is spot on. She’s intelligent and classy and has a mouth that I would love to discipline with my tongue every time she breaks from sophistication and says something dirty. She’s a conundrum, a riddle, a seemingly hot ass chick that has something underneath that I want to explore and I plan on doing just that tonight if I can figure out a way to get Poppy to get Finn out of here.