Total pages in book: 41
Estimated words: 38738 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38738 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
At six on the dot, a silver SUV came to a stop directly in front of my parking spot. The windows were tinted to an illegal degree, making it impossible for us to see who was driving.
“That has to be him,” Mel said quietly.
“Guess we’re about to find out.”
When the driver of the SUV stepped into my line of vision it wasn’t Ciaran, but one of his friends, Maverick Stolas. He peered through the windshield and offered a friendly wave. I took that as a sign we were supposed to go and talk to him. It didn’t escape my notice that he was by himself.
“You guys ready?”
Mel twisted her lips and looked over at me. “Is that rhetorical?”
With a roll of my eyes, I placed my fob in the clutch I’d chosen to match my dress and reached for the door handle.
I slipped out of the car and waited for them to do the same so that we’d be together.
“Don’t you all look beautiful,” Maverick proclaimed before casually demanding we give him our phones.
Grace eyed him warily. “Why?”
He grinned and slipped his hands into the pocket of his black hoodie. “Safety precautions.”
“And where is Ciaran?” Mel questioned suspicion bleeding into her tone.
“Waiting. We can go to him as soon as you relinquish the phones. You’ll get them back when we’re done.”
I hesitated for another second before begrudgingly popping open my clutch to remove my cell and hand it over. I knew this wouldn’t be a simple endeavor.
“Why thank you,” he lilted, tucking it right into his hoodie pocket before accepting Grace’s.
“Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea,” Mel muttered once she’d handed him hers.
Maverick stepped back and openly checked her out. “I think it was a fantastic idea. Is that navy? It’s definitely your color.”
His enthusiasm had me suppressing a smile. She did look good. There weren’t too many times she didn’t. Wearing a dress went against my better judgement considering the barn incident, but we had to adhere to Eden’s guidelines.
Grace and I had opted for black pieces that were more or less the same style as Mel’s—short, tight, and not at all appropriate for this meeting. I didn’t have a variety of other options to choose from. I couldn’t exactly where one of the gala gowns or cocktails was when I always dressed like this for these events. I didn’t want to garner my parents’ attention by suddenly switching it up.
Mel wasn’t a fan of the flattery and her expression conveyed that.
“Can we go wherever it is we’re going?”
“Come on.” His smile never slipped, he lifted his chin and indicated for us to get in the truck after taking another look at her.
Maverick wasn’t too bad on the eyes either, even in nothing but denim and a hoodie. His dark hair and nearly black eyes sharpened his jagged edges. He had a gorgeous smile and the kind of bad-boy charm that got good girls in trouble. Thankfully we didn’t fit such criteria.
We settled ourselves in the car, me up front, Mel and Grace in the back. Maverick opened the middle console and removed a slim metal pick resting at the bottom. Without a word, he took each of our cellphone cases off and then used the tool to pop open our sim card trays and remove them.
“What are you doing?”
“Being cautious in case your parents track your phones.”
I never knew if they did that for sure, but it had been a long-standing suspicion so for him to suspect the same thing practically confirmed it.
“Is that really the reason?” Mel asked.
“I’m doing this right in front of you, so you know where they are,” he remarked, placing all three phones into the center compartment along with their sim cards once they were powered down.
“But you have to turn your phones off in the theater. They can’t track them that way,” Grace pointed out.
Maverick shifted the truck into drive with a nod of his head. “Exactly. There’s a small probability they could turn back on. That’s one risk no matter how slight we’re not going to take.”
I couldn’t find a reason to argue with him, but the level of caution regarding this meet-up was proving to be more thorough.
Maverick pulled out of the parking lot and slid me a glance. “Are you more of a country or R&B, girl?”
When I didn’t reply, he reached for his stereo and began tapping away at the screen with a murmured, “Jazz it is.”
I sighed and propped my hand on my chin, looking out the window for some sign of where we were going.
I recognized the building right away. It belonged to a family mine wanted nothing to do with for reasons that were beyond my time.
If our parents were, in fact, tracking us I would be forever grateful someone deemed it necessary for our phones to be disabled. If they knew we were here they’d lose their minds.