Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Halfway across the park, she nudged my side, nodding toward the multitudes of men hustling light-up trinkets. If the woman said she wanted to buy one of those…
“Is that—” A small gasp left her lips. “It is! That man is a genius and a savior all at the same time.”
“Who? One of the street hustlers?” I turned to look at her but found her shrinking silhouette darting through the dark park and making a beeline toward a man with a bucket of wine.
So, the sexy little sloth could move with a sense of urgency when presented with wine?
Closing the distance between us, I watched Blake make a lot of exaggerated hand gestures before the man nodded and uncorked a bottle. I stopped beside her just as she exchanged money for the wine.
“Ten euros,” she said, thrusting the bottle toward the dark sky as though it were an Oscar. She collected two paper cups from the man, then gave a butchered-as-hell attempt at saying Au revoir. “Tell me that’s not a bargain?” she asked, walking off beside me.
During college, I’d spent a semester in Paris. There were plenty of decent-enough wines for under five euros, and if I had to guess, Blake could have bought the very same bottle in a grocery store for under four. Part of me wanted to let her bask in her perceived bargain, but then part of me enjoyed irritating her. Call it a bad flirting style… or maybe a touch of masochism.
“You do realize you could have paid half that at a store?”
“Are you crazy? It was ten euros. What wine is five euros at the store?”
“In France? A lot of it…” I pulled my phone from my pocket, Googled the brand she currently had clutched in her hand, which cost three euros fifty, then passed the device over to her.
The glow of the screen illuminated her narrowing gaze right before she shoved the phone against my chest. “Why do you have to take a shit on everything? You’re worse than a pigeon.”
I felt my brow cock. Worse than a pigeon… that was a new one.
“You could have just let me go on believing I’d gotten a bargain from bucket guy. It’s what any decent human being would do.”
“Fine,” I said, stopping in front of a natural area filled with trees and pine straw. “The stores are all closed. So actually, you got a bargain because, without bucket guy, you would be wineless.”
I dropped my backpack onto the lawn, then took a seat myself.
“Don’t take this as some grand gesture.” Blake held out one of the paper cups. “I don’t look like a drunk if we share.”
By the time we were a few glasses in, I had a hard buzz. And if I’d thought Blake liked to talk at work—not to me, of course—it didn’t hold a match to how much she liked to talk once she’d had a few drinks.
“So, why do you eavesdrop on Margot and me?” Blake swiped the bottle of wine from the grass, poured herself another glass, then went to top off mine.
“For the last time. It’s not eavesdropping. I can’t help but hear you two because you talk loud enough that Helen Keller could hear you from her grave.”
She stopped pouring my glass. “Did you just make fun of Helen Keller?”
“No.” Because that would be terrible. She was a real American hero. God, I was quickly approaching drunk. “I made fun of you.”
“By way of Helen Keller.” She scowled before pointing the now half-empty bottle at me. “That’s low. Even for you.”
“What is that supposed to mean? Even for me.”
She waved a hand at me like she was a game show host and I was the shitty prize behind the curtain. “I mean, let’s just face the facts. You’re a dick doodler, Vance. A charitable dick doodler, but a dick doodler nonetheless.”
“You say that like it’s a crime.”
“In some countries, I’m sure it is.”
I glared over the top of my paper cup at her. “In what country is dick doodling a crime?”
“I’m sure the same countries where porn is illegal.” She took a huge gulp, and I matched her. “And just as an FYI,” she said. “I’m pretty sure, if the Vatican found out about your plan for the Sistpeen Chapel… you’d do jail time. I mean, how on Earth do you think you’re going to get your dick out in the Sistine Chapel and not go to jail?”
I hadn’t exactly figured that one out yet. The alarm on my phone went off.
“I don’t know.” I downed my wine, grabbed my tripod and camera from my backpack, and pushed to my feet.
“Where are you—” She froze, paper wine cup halfway to her lips. Her widening gaze pinged between the equipment in my hand and my crotch. “No! You are not about to get him out?”