Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Clearly, her mom is convinced her daughter is a saint and made my mom believe in a boatload of bologna.
She giggles and then burps. Loudly. Which makes her laugh harder. “Goodness. Better out than in, I suppose. Don’t want to have a gas explosion. Holding your burps and farts gives you gastric issues. Have you heard that?”
No. This can’t be happening right now. This. Is. Entirely. Wrong. It’s too much. It’s far, far too much. I don’t care about being rude at this point. I wasn’t expecting much from yet another blind date. I’m doing this so that my parents will finally, finally, leave me be. The pressure is insane. I’m not going to let them marry me off or decide my fate, but I couldn’t handle the breakdowns my mom would legit have when I refused to go on the dates she arranged. My dad would then get mad that I upset my mom, and he’d get upset, and then we’d all be upset, and it’s just easier to agree, even if it’s messed up.
Yes, I have a set of balls. I really do. Maybe some small part of me was hoping that in all this, I’d find someone, and things would be less lonely. Maybe I thought I could find someone to laugh with, joke with, and be real with. Someone who really sees me. The fact that she comes from money means she won’t care that I’m rich. She’ll just be into what makes me who I am, and I can be into what makes her who she is because I’m not worried that she’s just into me for the money. I had a few of those dates before my mom started this endless procession of blind dates, setting me up with daughters of friends, daughters of acquaintances, or daughters of anyone, as long as she knew they wouldn’t try and use me and hurt me in the end. I wasn’t immune to it. I’m still not.
Genevieve ignores that I have my phone under the table, and I’m not even looking at her. “I swear, it’s true. The farting thing. I’ll tell you how I know that. There was this guy on TV who held his farts in. He held them in for years. He was trying to prove that it was some anomaly that he couldn’t fart, and his family was all like, no, you can fart, you’re a liar, you’re not special, and he was like, yes, I am. So, after all the years of holding these farts in, I guess it did real medical damage to him and—”
I cut her off by whipping my phone up over the table. I found the photo my mom texted me last week after setting this up. It might be grainy as fuck, but the woman in it has unmistakably blue eyes, higher cheekbones, and a far poutier mouth. No freckles.
Her face falls, and real panic sets in. She’s been caught, and she knows it.
“This is Genevieve Walker.” I don’t think my voice has ever been so dry. This is the dryness of overdone turkey and ruined Thanksgiving dinner times a thousand. “So, who the heck does that make you?”
Chapter three
Evilla
Evilla (Still pronounced the same way as before, even though I’ve actually gone and done something that could be classified as rather evil.)
Oh, shitballs for real. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Don’t panic. Calm, calm, calm. Say you got plastic surgery. Say the photo is an old one. Say it was sent to him in error. Shit, why am I so terrible at lying? He’ll know. He already knows. Why the hell didn’t Gen warn me that he had a picture? Low quality or not, that’s clearly not me. What did I think he had? A physical description? Yes, that’s exactly what I thought he had. And I had the one Gen showed me from an online portfolio right before she tucked me, all made up, into the cab. Fudge, fuck, fucklestuckle.
I was wrong. I think right now is a good time to panic.
Screw that. I’m not panicking. I’m not going to salvage this either, but I can at least stay calm.
I grab a crab leg, crack it, and hold out a long piece of red and white meat. “Here. Try this. It’s amazing.”
Mont stares at me like I’m an alien imposter. Alright, so I kind of am. When I first got here and saw him, my insides did a little squeezy happy dance because, okay, he’s hot. He was handsome in his photo online, but I only had about five seconds to study it, and then I was too nervous in the cab. I didn’t want to look him up when I needed to focus and not have a panic attack. But I should have. I should have done as much research as possible. I should have been more prepared for this.