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)
“Fine.” I stalk across the room and plop down on the love seat next to her, hoping she’ll stop being stubborn long enough to hear me out.
“So,” she starts. “Have you called her back yet?”
She’s so transparent with her pettiness it almost makes me laugh.
I love it.
I love the fact that she has a catty side to her, damned if I don’t.
“No. I have not called her back yet. My first priority was coming to find you.” I have nothing to say to Paisley Blue. “I have no clue why she would call me. I haven’t spoken to her in months.”
Harlow purses her lips, another thing about her I find cute and endearing, despite her snit.
“Harlow. If you have something you want to say to me, please say it to my face. Don’t run away.”
I can see the cogs turning in her brain as she debates whether or not to unleash her thoughts on me.
“Are you still seeing her?”
“No.”
“Then why is she calling you?”
“No idea. She didn’t leave any messages.”
Harlow inhales. “Am I a rebound?”
I want to roll my eyes but refrain; it’ll only piss her off even more. “No—isn’t a rebound when you sleep with someone right after a breakup?”
“Yes.”
“So how would you be a rebound? We broke up months ago.”
“Five months,” she tells me.
I stare at her. “I’m sorry—were you there?”
Harlow seems surprised by my sarcastic rebuttal, settling back into the love seat, crossing her arms and legs in a defensive pose. Closed off.
“Valid point, I guess.” She sniffs indignantly.
“You know what would be nice? If you wanted to learn about me directly from me and not from the media.” That’s one way to kill this relationship before it starts.
I feel my nostrils flare.
“I didn’t learn about you from the media! I barely googled you—it was my friends.” Harlow’s voice has risen several notches. “I saw her calling, and obviously I was confused. She called twice in a row, and then I started getting all these text messages from my friends, telling me about the statement posted about you on social media.”
Statement posted on social media?
“What statement?”
Harlow gapes at me. “Are you telling me no one has called to tell you about the Paisley press release? Please, don’t you have, like, forty agents and publicists at your beck and call whose literal job it is to inform you about this crap?”
She is so pissed that she actually snorts.
“I . . .” Yes, I do have people who should tell me this shit. “I got out of the shower, found you gone, got dressed, and came here as quickly as I could.”
But now I’m reaching around to my back pocket to retrieve my phone and find several missed calls and texts from Trent. The texts from him include a screenshot of some bullshit paragraph that Paisley apparently wrote—it definitely sounds like she wrote it herself.
I begin reading her words out loud furiously:
“Landon and I might have not had a perfect relationship—but it was a passionate and incredible eight months. While I don’t know the details or current status of his relationship with this woman . . .”
I feel my lips moving as I read the rest to myself.
“What the actual fuck is this?” I whisper, horrified, running a hand through my hair. “I have no idea what this is about.”
Why would Paisley do this?
“Welp.” Harlow slaps her palms to her knees. “Maybe she called you a billion times to give you a heads-up about the statement.”
Maybe. “It wasn’t a billion times—don’t overexaggerate.”
“You don’t get to tell me not to overexaggerate.” She huffs.
Her father lingers in the room next door, pretending to poke at the arrangement in the center of his dining room table.
“I cannot pretend to know why she called or what she wants.”
Harlow doesn’t look like she believes me. “If you haven’t spoken in months, then why would she bother to call you?”
“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “This is what I’ve been saying!”
“It really does not look good,” Big Steve butts in from the other room, desperate to insert his two cents. “But you know these hot Hollywood types.”
“Dude.” I shoot him a look. “Could you not?”
His short arms go up, hands waving as he goes back to fake fluffing his table. “I’m just saying!”
“Steve.” I sigh. “Can you please just give us a bit of privacy. Give me a few minutes, that’s all I need.” I pause. “Please.”
Harlow and I both watch as he wars with himself. On one hand, he hella wants to be nosy—on the other hand, I’ve asked for privacy, and who is going to tell Landon Burke no? Then again, he has a loyalty to his daughter.
He could just as easily kick my ass out.
It’s one hell of a decision for Big Steve; I can see him debating and the way he’s biting down on his bottom lip . . . such a difficult decision.