Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 92368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
“So…we’re only one school year apart, but you’re nearly two years older than me. Well, a year and eleven months older, which is weird if you think about it.”
Jesus, Cam. Stop your rambling. Why don’t you also tell him that your legal guardian is with the New York City Police Department and finish off any hopes you might have had with him?
“You look older,” he says. “No offense.”
“None taken. I hear that a lot, too. I think it’s my height. Hopefully, not my face. I don’t want to have a prematurely aged face.”
He laughs. But I don’t feel like he’s laughing at me, like he thinks I’m a total goof. More like he thinks I’m funny, in a good way.
And that does something funny to my stomach.
“You don’t need to worry about your face,” he tells me and smiles that half-smile again.
Something swoops up and flutters into my chest.
I feel giddy and light.
Goddamn, he’s pretty.
“Where are your friends?” I ask, floating on a cloud of him.
“How did you know I was here with friends?”
Ah. Crap.
“I, um…well, I saw you before. You were on this game, and I was over there. But I wasn’t stalking you or anything. I just saw you, is all.”
I’m dying. Jesus. Kill me now.
He chuckles low and deep, and I feel it from the roots of the hair on my head to right down to the tips of my toes.
“I saw you, too,” he tells me.
Wow.
Yeah…just wow.
“So, what are you doing now?” he asks me.
Going wherever you’re going.
“Going home,” I say.
“Why?”
“I have no clue.” I’m fairly sure I can’t even remember my own name right now.
“Then, you should stay.”
“Why?” I hear myself asking.
That smile that turns me to Jell-O slides back onto his face.
“Good question. You want the truth?”
“Always.”
He takes a step closer to me. His scent is spicy and something completely masculine, and it overwhelms me in the best possible way.
“Because I find you interesting. And usually nothing but boxing interests me. But you interest me.”
“Why?” Apparently, that word is now two-thirds of my vocabulary.
“You’re funny and pretty. Really pretty.”
“And fifteen.”
“And fifteen,” he echoes.
“And my aunt is a cop.”
“Good to know.”
“Why?”
“Because it means you have someone looking out for you.”
Oh.
“I’m not having sex with you, if that’s what you’re after.”
Laughter bursts from him.
Filter, Cam. Filter, for God’s sake.
“I was just thinking of a walk. Maybe a ride on the Ferris wheel. But good to know where your head’s at.” He wipes the laughter from his eyes.
“Sorry,” I say.
“Don’t be. You’re right to be careful. You don’t know me.” He pauses and lifts his cap from his head. His hair is dark brown. He runs his hand over his sheared hair. Then, he puts his cap back on and fixes those bright blue eyes of his on mine. “But I want you to know me. And I really want to know you.”
I bite my lip and then tuck my hair behind my ear. “Okay,” I say.
He smiles. A full smile this time, showing his teeth. They’re white but not perfect. His front teeth have a slight overlap to them. But it suits him. Makes him even more handsome, if that’s possible.
“I’m Zeus,” he tells me.
“Like the god?”
He chuckles, and I realize how that sounded.
“Not that I think you’re a god, of course,” I add with a roll of my eyes to try to come off as nonchalant. It totally doesn’t work.
“Of course not.” He smiles. “But, yeah, like the god.”
“Cameron. But everyone calls me Cam.”
“Who’s everyone?”
“My aunt.”
“The cop.”
“And my friends back home in Baltimore. I just moved here a few days ago.”
He nods, like he already knows this. “Have you been on the Ferris wheel yet?” he asks.
I shake my head, not wanting to say that I wanted to but didn’t because of a couple of mean girls.
“Well, you can’t come to the fair and not go on the Ferris wheel. It’s like the law of Coney Island.”
“Really?” I lift a skeptical brow.
“No.” He grins boyishly, and I laugh. “But you do need to go on the Ferris wheel. Come on.” He holds his hand out to me.
“Um…” I hesitate, and he sees it.
“Do you not like Ferris wheels?”
“No. I mean, yeah, I do. I just…well, without sounding like a kindergartner, I was in line to ride it just before, and…some girls were mean to me. And, after that, I didn’t so much feel like going on it anymore.”
“How were they mean?”
“I can’t believe I’m telling you this.” I self-deprecatingly roll my eyes, exhaling a breath.
But he doesn’t say anything. Just waits.
So, I say, “They called me a loser because I was going to go on the ride alone.”
“And do you care what they think?”
“Yes. I mean, no. Kind of. It’s stupid. I’m stupid.”
“No, you’re not. Look, people like that are just shitty because they’re insecure themselves, and they need to try to bring everyone else down to make them feel better about themselves.”