Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 131271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 656(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131271 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 656(@200wpm)___ 525(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
“If you get me alone, I’d be more than happy to show you my moves.”
She smirks. “Nice try, Hayes.”
“Can’t blame a guy for being hopeful. So, what about you? What are you hoping to major in?”
“Journalism,” she says quickly, then brings her thumb to her mouth to nibble. “Digital comms or broadcasting. Maybe social media.”
“What area?”
“Sports,” she says.
“Seriously. I wouldn’t have taken you for a sports enthusiast.”
“It’s in my blood.” She smiles. “You remember what my dad was like?”
I do. Of all mom’s boyfriends, he was the one who took an interest in our progress, attending our games and watching hockey games on TV with us. Jacob hated it, but I didn’t mind. He wasn’t trying to step into our dad’s shoes. He just had a real love of the sport. “Yeah. So, are you on the university paper? Hoping to snag an exclusive interview with the media-shy Icebreaker’s star defenseman?”
“Who would that be, then?”
I laugh as she sips her beer.
“Not on the paper yet. There’s a lot of competition. I’d really like to get involved with social media, but I haven’t looked into it yet. They’re going to want experience.”
“Do you have any?”
She hesitates and then nods. “I do, but maybe not what they’re looking for.”
“Well, I’m serious about giving you an interview. If you want to try putting something together, you could use it to tempt them into giving you a spot.”
“You’d do that?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“I don’t know. Because you don’t really know me, and you’re media shy.”
“I know you, Riley,” I say. “I remember you.”
She arches an eyebrow, and I get lost in her dark eyes. I remember them the best. The way she’d hide them behind her frizzy bangs, but I’d catch her watching us with deep interest. It’s like she wanted us to ask her to become part of our group. Like she’d really wanted to be our sister. But that was never going to happen. Not the way we were back then.
“What do you remember?” she asks.
“I remember that you seemed lonely,” I say. It comes out before I think about how defensive Riley might be about the past. She’s different now. Confident in her own skin, at peace with herself.
“Oh yeah? What else?”
“I remember you used to read these fantasy novels with dragons and knights on the covers.”
“Still do,” she says. “What else?”
“I remember you had a blanket. Blue and white crochet style.”
“My mom made that for me before I was born. She was convinced I was going to be a boy.”
“That’s sweet.” I think my mom spent her whole pregnancy in shock at the idea that she was having triplets at twenty-two. There wasn’t a homemade blanket or sweater in sight.
“So, you remember a lonely nerd reader with a blanket obsession?”
“Nah,” I say. “I remember a girl I wanted to talk to but was too damn shy.”
That surprises her. “You? Shy?”
“Yeah. Fuck yeah.”
“But you always had girls hanging around you.”
“They weren’t there for me.”
She frowns and reaches out to stop the spinning beer mat as if she wants me to concentrate on the conversation and not the spinning. Without my distraction, her attention is like hot palms against fevered skin. “What do you mean?”
I shrug, thinking back to high school. It wasn’t an unhappy time for me, but it was when my brothers’ confidence with girls started to show. “Jacob and Shawn…they were there for them.”
In Forester’s corner, a glass smashes, and a loud ‘ooooo’ sounds in response. I catch him looking across at us, first at me, then at an oblivious Riley. This might be my only chance to show him that Riley is off-limits. Resting my hand on her jaw, I lean in. Eye to eye, every muscle in my body tightens. I’m ready to tell her what I’m doing, but she blinks with surprise and doesn’t say no. I lean in closer, inhaling her heady scent.
This isn’t my first kiss. I’m a virgin when it comes to penetrative sex, not the other things that come before, but it feels big.
Huge.
Like when the minutes are ticking down and we’re fighting to keep a one-goal win; filled with anxiousness, anticipation, and the buzz of potential victory.
I press my lips against hers before she can ask me what the fuck I’m doing, praying she won’t push me away. The kiss is a surprise because it’s exactly like I thought it would be—warm and sweet with a tingle that travels down my spine—but also right in a bone-deep way that makes me groan low in my throat.
Riley’s hand rests on my cheek, but it doesn’t push me away; it just hovers there like she doesn’t know what to do. I think she’s as conflicted as I am because moving my lips on hers, gently sucking her bottom lip between mine, and licking the underside of her top lip makes us both let out staggered breaths.