Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
“A cold drink sounds good too,” Sam notes, quickly stealing a glance at me.
“It does.”
“Want to go grab a drink?”
I turn my head, taking another look at his muscular chest. “Now? Isn’t it a little early for drinks?”
“I actually meant lemonade or something,” he says with a laugh. “Though it’s never too early for drinks,” he teases, playfully elbowing me.
Laughing, I shake my head. “Lemonade actually sounds good.”
We walk a few more paces. “We can go to Sunset Tavern,” Sam suggests. Sunset Tavern is one of the newer restaurants in Silver Ridge, and it caters to the tourists vacationing here in the summer. Like Silver Café, it’s along the lake, but on the opposite side. The same people who own Sunset Tavern own Sunset Marina, which is the only place to rent jet skis and boats from if you want to take one out on the lake.
Locals to Silver Ridge don’t typically go to Sunset Tavern. The food is on the expensive side for what it is, and the owners have gotten a bit snooty over the years. It’s a shame, really, because the rooftop bar has an amazing view of the lake, and it can be entertaining to sit up there and watch boaters go by.
“Yeah, I’d like that a lot.”
“Did you walk here?” Sam asks.
“I did, and I’m guessing you didn’t. Where are you parked?”
“The east parking lot.”
It’s the same lot he was parked in the day it rained, and we’re a decent walk away from it. Not that I mind. We walk in silence for a few minutes, but it’s peaceful and not awkward. Though it’s hot out, it’s a gorgeous day, and the sound of nature surrounds us.
“I didn’t realize how much I missed the woods before,” I muse. “It’s so peaceful.”
“It is. Living in Indy and then Chicago has made me appreciate small-town life so much more than I did before. Everyone was so eager to get out of here.”
“They were, and I was one of them,” I say, not sure if I’m admitting something new to Sam or not. I was on the fence about leaving when I graduated high school. Part of me longed for a fresh start and an adventure, typical of seventeen and eighteen-year-olds, I know. But another part didn’t want to leave Dad alone, and I felt guilty enough going away to college.
“Do you like living in LA?”
“Overall, yes. It has its downfalls, I’ll admit, but the weather is amazing and my publicist is there, so it works out really well. Plus the network studio headquarters are close by, so when I go to sit in on any sort of discussions, I’m right there.”
“That would make things easier.” We walk a few more paces. “If you weren’t writing, do you think you would have ended up there?”
I think about it for a second. “I don’t know. I was itching for a change, but I didn’t make the move to LA until I got the screen option for Nightfall. I don’t even know what I’d do if I wasn’t a writer.” I look at Sam with wide eyes. “I’d have to get a real job.”
He chuckles, and damn, that man is so gorgeous when he smiles. “You have no idea what else you’d do?”
“Hmmm…” I think for a moment. “I’d be a paleontologist.”
“Really?”
I nod eagerly. “And I’d be a really good one, who’d find something that would enable me to co-fund a dinosaur theme park, but I’d be like really in touch with the dinos. So when the T-Rex breaks free of her enclosures, she picks me up with her tiny little arms and puts me on her back before she reigns hell on earth and eats everything in her path.”
“I’m sorry to break it to you,” Sam says, stopping and putting his hand on my shoulder. “I don’t think that’s what paleontologists actually do.”
“Dang it.” I love the way his large hand feels against my skin. “That’s the second-most disappointing thing I’ve ever heard.”
“What’s the first?” He slides his hand down my arm.
“The people who wear old-fashioned clothes at the start park are volunteers through the Park Department. They’re not paid to dress up and cook homemade apple pies on a wood-burning stove. If they were, I’d be all over that job.”
“That would be a low-stress-level job. I might even do it.”
“You could be a nineteenth-century doctor, traveling around with your leather doctor bag. Tell the people you don’t like their ailments are caused by demons so they’re families kill them in their sleep.”
He laughs again. “Did they really do that?”
I shrug. “Maybe? I’m making things up, though I do know demons were to blame for things they couldn’t understand back then.”
“Can you imagine living like that?”
I shake my head. “I’d have been locked up or burned at the stake years ago. I’m way too independent and weird to have been born even fifty years ago. Though I sometimes think I would have thrived if I lived in a Lord of the Rings type of time and setting.”