Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 74730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74730 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 374(@200wpm)___ 299(@250wpm)___ 249(@300wpm)
Normally I’d pick something in the horror genre, but not everyone has the same refined taste as me.
“What?” Slade glances up from his phone, half-listening. “Yeah, whatever. That’s fine.”
I press play and the room flashes dark save for the giant red N on the screen and the dim light of Slade’s cell in his hand. Whatever he’s texting or emailing about, it must be serious because he’s done nothing but sigh and huff since he sat down a few minutes ago.
I fully expected him to retire to his suite for the night when we got home earlier, but he muttered something about not wanting to be cooped up and asked what I was going to do. Before I had a chance to answer, my mother suggested we “relax with a movie in the den” and offered to have the house manager pop us some of her “famous” white cheddar popcorn.
The entire thing was as wholesome as it was awkward—and now here we are.
The sound of moaning and panting co-mingles with some chipper pop song as the film starts, and the camera pans to a bed covered in messy sheets and tangled, bare legs.
Oh god … I had no idea it was going to start like this.
From the corner of my eye, I catch Slade’s attention gradually lifting away from his email and towards the TV.
Rose Byrne’s character grabs a fistful of her partner’s wavy blond hair as she gyrates her hips beneath him. Her face is contorted and she’s breathless and sweaty. Pretty sure sex is nothing like this in real life, but I wouldn’t know for sure.
Maybe it is?
Wouldn’t that be wild?
“Harder … yes … oh god … don’t stop,” Rose pants as her nails dig into her co-star’s muscled back. “Just like that … yeah … keep going … harder, deeper …”
I pull my merino wool throw blanket tighter around me and slink down into the sofa. I’m a grown woman, but if my father were to walk in right now, I’d feel very much like a humiliated teenager wanting to crawl inside a hole and die. Anyone walking past right now would no doubt think we were casually enjoying a porno together.
“You like that, Jasmine?” the muscled blond Casanova growls into her ear as he plows into her. “God, you’re so wet. I just—”
Rose stops gyrating and panting, her brown eyes wide and her mouth agape.
“What’d you just say?” she asks, shoving him off of her.
The man, clearly confused, says, “I said you were wet …”
“No, before that. You called me Jasmine. My name is Jessamyn,” she says.
In one frustrated fell swoop, Rose’s character pushes him off the bed, wraps her naked, sweaty body in the tangled sheets, and scampers off to the bathroom, slamming the door behind her. The man, cupping his junk, chases after her, knocking and apologizing for the gaffe while we get a perfectly framed view of his tanned, taut glutes.
“God, I hate when that happens …” I tease in an attempt to make this less awkward.
Slade frowns. “What?”
“Never mind.” I wave my hand. If you have to explain a joke, that means it wasn’t funny enough to begin with.
I return my focus to the movie.
“I said Jessamyn!” the male star insists as he talks through the locked door.
“You said Jasmine!” Rose yells from the other side. “And that’s my sister’s name! I knew you liked her. I knew it. You tried to deny it when I asked you before, but I had a feeling …”
The on-screen couple continues to bicker, and I fully expect Slade to mentally check out at any time, but he doesn’t.
The montage that follows shows Rose’s character kicking her beau out and tossing his clothes over the balcony railing of their Manhattan apartment. Not exactly groundbreaking stuff here, but I’m curious to see how it pans out because the next scene has Rose calling her sister—the real Jasmine—to tell her what happened. Only Jasmine’s reaction isn’t what Rose’s character was expecting … at all.
“Do you ever wish you had a brother or sister?” I ask, tossing a salty, cheesy popcorn kernel into my mouth. “Like, we’ll never know what it’s like to fight with a sibling.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It’s just some food for thought.” I chomp another kernel before offering him the bucket we’re supposed to be sharing.
He shakes his head, passing. I don’t push it. More for me.
While Jasmine and Jessamyn quarrel over the blond muscled now-homeless guy, I steal another peek at Slade. The dark of the room and the flash of the TV screen illuminates his perfect profile, highlighting his strong, straight nose, his prominent jaw, full lips, and thick head of hair.
To think … he’s going to be the father of my future children.
Tuning out the on-screen drama, I whip up a visualization of what our babies might look like, swapping out various features like that Super Mario Brothers game where you have to match up the three parts of a star or mushroom or plant.