Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
“Got it,” she said, and I lowered her down. She hopped off the first second she could. “Thanks.” Her voice was somewhere between awkward and neutral, and I didn’t blame her. Neither of us could’ve predicted that any part of me would be between her legs today. Even if it was just my neck.
We set off again, with Jayden in the lead, until we reached the next checkpoint. This was starting to feel like a double date—although not a particularly good one. Tori and Mia walked side by side, their heads tilted together as they chatted and snapped selfies for the contest. Jayden and I watched them, making awkward small talk.
So much for Mia getting more comfortable with me. The only one she was getting to know better was Tori. And possibly Jayden as well.
So yeah, that plan was going nowhere. Maybe the new plan should be to win the damn race. That would knock Jayden down a peg or two. Though I had no concrete reason for it, the guy was bugging me. Every chance he got, he touched or played with Tori’s hair. It made me long to squeeze a handful of Mia’s waves, though they were currently confined in a ballerina-esque bun.
Another team flew past, nearly barreling into Mia, and I grabbed her shoulders, pulling her back. She stared at the departing figures. “Maybe we should run, too.”
No one objected, and we progressed quickly through a half-dozen more checkpoints near the social sciences and history buildings. At one point, Mia and I posed on a bench next to a bronze statue of the university founder, smoking a pipe and reading a book. And then next to a scale replica of Pompeii.
We were sprinting across the quad, Mia just a step ahead of me, when a soccer ball rolled across the sidewalk and into my path. Without thinking, I slowed and trapped it.
I bounced it lightly from foot to foot, then once off my knee before giving it a good kick back.
“Nice,” one of the guys said as the ball rolled right to him.
Another called out, “Hey ref! We’re down a man—you in?”
Mia had slowed down to watch, so I waved them off and caught up with her.
“So… I guess that really is a uniform, not a costume.” The way her eyes swept up and down my body affected me more than it should have. “You look like you know what you’re doing.”
With a soccer ball, yes. With her? Not so much.
It wasn’t high praise, but I’d take it from the woman who’d done her best to pretend I didn’t exist since the day she moved in. “Right now, what I’m doing—we’re doing—is wiping the floor with our competition.”
She grinned, and we broke into a run to catch up with Tori and Jayden, but they’d slowed, too, and were talking to a couple of guys sitting on a low concrete wall. Jayden jogged backward until Tori gave the guys a final wave and continued onward.
“Who are they?” I asked, since it was clear at least Tori knew them.
Mia hesitated. “Those are Tori’s… other two friends.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Is she only allowed three, or something?”
“It seems like more than enough to me.”
That seemed like a strange take.
But there was no time to focus on it, because for once, Jayden was stumped. He peered over Tori’s shoulder and read the next clue aloud. “’Strike a pose like Jack and Rose,’” he read. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Titanic,” I said instantly. My foster mom loved that movie.
“So are we supposed to head to the bottom of the ocean?” That was from Tori.
Mia flipped through her phone and pulled up the classic image of Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio standing at the bow of the ship. “There’s a white railing in front of them. Is there anything like that on campus where we can get the shot?”
“Yes,” Jayden said, already taking off. What the fuck was he majoring in, obscure corners of campus?
After another run, we arrived at a little garden. I’d seen it a time or two before. There were often pictures of it in the spring, when the trees blossomed. A small pond was centered in the space with an arched footbridge over it.
A footbridge with white rails.
“You guys go first, and we’ll take a picture of you from down here.” Mia swapped her phone with Tori who grabbed Jayden’s hand and ran off.
When they were in the center of the bridge, Tori held her hands out to the side with Jayden close behind her, his hands on her waist.
“Got it,” Mia called, and then we were all running, switching places.
When Mia stepped up to the railing, I moved in behind her. When I slid my hands around her waist, all I could feel was that ridiculous tutu. Why the hell did ballerinas need them? They didn’t do anything except get in the way.