Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 133655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Good Lord, what have I done?
I’ve just made her abandon her date because I’m a jealous little fuckboy.
My chest grows tight, and the rubber band of injustice snaps me in the dick.
I pace the room like a caged animal, dragging my hands aggressively through my hair. If I made her leave that date for anything short of Armageddon, I can kiss my chances of making her love me goodbye. I’ve got to mobilize. I’ve got to improvise.
And I’d better do it fucking quick.
I transition from an aimless march to an all-out sprint out of my bedroom. I’ve just insisted she come home to help me with the party that Gunnar is throwing, and there’s no party. There’s no anything but me with my dick in my hand.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
Upon arrival to Gunnar’s room, I’m disappointed to find him doing nothing other than lounging on his beanbag chair, some sort of fucking documentary playing on the TV at a neutral volume.
There’s no fire. No belly dancers. There’s not even a vape pen.
I’m in big, big trouble here.
“What are you doing?” I shout, and Gunnar looks up at me in confusion.
“Uh…” Gunnar shrugs. “Watching the making of the International Space Station.”
“You’re fucking kidding me!”
Gunnar’s brows draw together. He’s obviously not kidding me, but of all the times for him to act like he’s not the biggest menace to society on Planet Earth, he picks tonight. This is the kid who egged the governor’s mansion on his school trip to Albany, for Pete’s sake.
“Okay, fine. You’re not kidding. You’ve gone through a metamorphosis from you to a…vegetable. But I need you to do something. Anything but this.”
“I’m not following, bro.” He’s detached. Uninterested. Making my fucking heart burn.
“Can you, like, I don’t know…light something on fire…steal a car…throw a party? Be you, for fuck’s sake!”
“You want me to throw a party? Like, right now?” He mutes the TV and turns himself in his chair to face me fully. I don’t like the look in his eye, but I got off the phone with Julia at least two minutes ago, so I don’t really have the room to start thinking through how bad of an idea this could be now.
The train is in motion, and baby, it ain’t stopping.
“Yeah.”
Gunnar shrugs and gets out his phone, scrolling so calmly my balls shrivel into my body. He’s either going full sociopath or fucking me over by being the most normal he’s ever been, and right now—I can’t believe I’m saying this—I need it to be the latter. I need him to be less contained. Pronto.
“What are you doing? Now isn’t the time to play fucking Pokémon Go, bro.”
He sighs. “In order to have a party, I need to invite people.”
“Oh. Hitting up the group chat?”
Gunnar snorts. “I invited the whole contact list, excluding Mom and Dad.”
“You what?”
He sighs again, this time rising from his beanbag chair and pulling off his pants until he’s standing in nothing but his underwear. “You’re really starting to annoy me. You wanted a party, and I’m throwing a party. What’s the problem?”
“Your contact list? The entire thing? Our fucking grandparents are in your phone. Julia’s parents. Dad’s assistant.”
He shrugs and pulls a different pair of shorts from his drawer, slinging them on. He doesn’t get a shirt, though. He never gets a shirt, and he never responds when I try to explain that we’re all tired of seeing his nipples. It’s like his vocal cords stop working. “It’ll sort itself out.”
“Into chaos! You think Kline Brooks is getting a text about you throwing a fucking monster party at our house and not contacting our father? Dad’s assistant Madeline? She’s worked for him since before we were born!”
Gunnar shrugs. “Maybe they’ll finally realize I’m gone, then.”
Fuck me. He’s not entirely wrong. It’s been almost twenty-four hours at this point since he up and mysteriously flew back to New York from the Bahamas on some random airline while my parents slept or partied or who the hell knows. My parents are a unique set of individuals—I know that—but I can’t believe they haven’t noticed him missing yet. It just doesn’t track.
For all I know, Gunnar blocked both of us as contacts in their phones and the Bahamian authorities are dragging the whole damn ocean right now.
“They probably did realize but have the Bahamian authorities doing an island-by-island grid search. Have you called them? Texted?”
“No. Have you?”
“Well, no. I’ve been…busy.” Obsessing over Julia, trying not to self-destruct. It’s been a very crowded agenda.
“Then it is what it is. If they find out, they find out.”
“How are you the most casual human on the planet at fourteen? Like, are you missing the gene that synthesizes consequences? Are you a fucking sociopath? I really don’t get it.”
“You don’t get it because you take life too seriously.”
“Me? Take life seriously? Do you know who the fuck you’re talking to?”