Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 90736 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90736 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 454(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Four missed chats from Paisley?
That can’t be right.
I tap my call log to verify.
When I check the call history, her name is there in red. Bright and bold, there is no mistaking it.
Why the fuck is she calling, let alone video chatting me? What reason could she possibly have for contacting me once, let alone four times?
It’s been five months since we ended things and five months since we’ve had any contact. Funny how she finds the need to contact me now.
My eyes go to the time stamp for the first missed call: thirteen minutes ago.
While I was in the shower.
While Harlow was still lying on the bed, blissfully luxuriating in the afterglow of a baller fucking.
She must have seen Paisley calling—there can be no other explanation for it.
You don’t have to worry about my ex-girlfriend, I had promised Harlow. We don’t speak. We don’t call each other. We don’t text, I had assured her in my most determined voice. There is nothing to worry about. She is not in my orbit.
Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck. Not in my orbit, my ass!
Paisley made me look like a goddamn liar. My vision clouds—by the mounting frustration brewing inside my belly and, more than that, by the regret.
This is all my doing, and it could have been prevented if I had been honest from the second Harlow asked my name.
I palm my phone, staring down at the notifications and messages, spying one from Harlow’s dad, grateful that he insisted we share contact information, just in case.
“Sure, Steve. If you insist,” I’d said to patronize him.
I didn’t actually think I would need to contact him.
Big Steve: Harlow is at my house, and she seems Real Pissed!!!!! Pacing around ranting and raving—you might wanna come over since it’s your name she’s cussing out. Here is my address: 1010 Carter Blvd, Condo No. 789, Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States.
I chuckle at that last part—as if he had to clarify that we are in the United States?
Me: Thanks, be right over.
Big Steve: She definitely saw the call come in from Paisley, that model ex-girlfriend of yours.
That model ex-girlfriend of mine. If I weren’t so frustrated, that sentence may have made me laugh.
Instead, I pull my hoodie on when my phone pings again.
Big Steve: Also, do you want anything to eat? I can whip something up?
No i do not Want Anything to Eat! This dude is killing me.
I shoot my driver a text, hoping he’s not in the middle of something. I need him here stat so I can get to Steve’s house. I give the dog a scratch behind his giant ears—Kevin is the only one in this house on speaking terms with me right now.
It’ll take ten excruciatingly long minutes for my ride to arrive, and while I wait, I bound out the back door, almost forgetting to lock up.
I step off the porch.
“Hi.”
A voice stops me in my tracks, and I turn.
A teenage girl is standing at the hedgerow, staring over at me.
“Hey there.” I give her a wave.
“I’m Lydia,” she informs me. “You must be the ‘something’ that came up.”
“Scuse me?”
The girl laughs. “Harlow texted me earlier today when I was walking Kevin and asked me to keep him a while longer because something came up. I take it you are that something.”
Well, shit. What am I supposed to say to that? “I’m Andy.”
“I’m Lydia—the neighbor.” She squints at me. “Is Andy short for Landon Burke the football player? Because you look just like him, and my dad said he’s rumored to be in town. Tons of pictures on Instagram.”
I nod, holding my finger to my lips. “Don’t tell anyone I’m here.”
“I mean—people know you’re here.” Her eye roll is legendary. Way better than any eye roll Harlow has given me.
“I meant here,” I explain. “With Harlow. At her house.”
Even though the press knows her name and that she lives in Green Bay, we’re lucky enough that no one has shown up outside as they sometimes do.
“Oh. Gotcha.” She gets closer to the hedge. “Are you dating her? Because if you’re not serious, I don’t want her to get hurt. Plenty of guys are interested if you’re only playing games.”
Is this kid giving me a warning?
Because I have never been given a dressing-down by a teenager, let alone a teenage girl.
Mind. Fucking. Blown.
Even Harlow’s father didn’t interrogate me like this.
In fact, the old man was practically throwing his daughter at me, planning our vacation-destination wedding with three hundred of his closest friends and frenemies, and naming his unborn grandkids.
“I’m not playing games with her,” I tell Lydia. “In fact, I’m taking this more serious than she is.” Crap. Should I not say shit like that to the neighbor girl? “We met when we were both in New York last week for work.”
“Really? How?”
“In Central Park.”