Total pages in book: 12
Estimated words: 11130 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 56(@200wpm)___ 45(@250wpm)___ 37(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 11130 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 56(@200wpm)___ 45(@250wpm)___ 37(@300wpm)
“No, but I was daydreaming about running off to live in the woods,” I confess, though I’m not about to tell her why.
It’s swiftly becoming clear this isn’t my moment.
Jess is already stressed out about how fast things are changing, the last thing she needs is for her best friend to suddenly become a lovesick puppy she doesn’t know how to be around. And yeah, I’ve always been a lovesick puppy where she’s concerned, and she probably should have realized that by now, but she hasn’t, and I’m grateful. I don’t want to spend my last year in New Jersey avoiding Jess because things are weird between us now.
I want to be there for her and…I need her to be there for me.
My mom and I have a great relationship, but there are things you can’t talk to your mom about, and I don’t have many friends at my school. The chess club guys are solid, and I met some nice jocks the semester I ran track that I still go jogging with sometimes, but none of them are Jess. They’re friendly acquaintances, not ride-or-dies.
That’s what she is to me. She’s more than my best friend, she’s the one person I would literally do anything for.
Well, almost anything…
Because when she turns to me and says, “Right. It’s all so stressful. That’s why I think we should make a deal. A sex deal,” I’m tempted to make a run for the tree line.
Instead, I gulp and blurt out, “If you’re asking me to have casual sex to take care of our virginity problem, don’t. I can’t do that with you. I can’t, and I won’t.”
It’s the closest I’ve ever come to the truth and there’s no way to rewind time or suck the words back from the warm summer air.
All that’s left now is to see if Jess knows me well enough to read between the lines and learn the secret that might destroy our friendship forever.
CHAPTER FIVE
Jess
I’m not a blusher, but I’m pretty sure my cheeks are flaming lava red as I wave Sam off with a laugh.
“No, no way,” I lie. “What are you even saying? That would be crazy.”
“You’re lying again,” he says, studying me like a bug under a microscope—an insane bug, who should be put down before she endangers herself and others.
“I’m not,” I insist, but Sam’s still watching me like a bomb about to blow. Deep down, I know this isn’t going to work, but I force another breezy laugh. “Seriously, that’s not what I meant. At all.”
“So, what did you mean?” he asks.
“I just meant that…um…” I will my allegedly kick ass brain to come up with an alternative explanation for the stupid shit that came out of my mouth. “I meant that, sometimes, when I think about that particular hurdle, I um…” I clear my throat, stalling for time, but my brain is still running in panicked circles, willing the earth to open and swallow it whole.
Cursing my less-than-stellar deception skills, I confess in a rush, “Okay, fine, I did kind of mean that, but not…right now.” I laugh nervously, the realization that he probably thought I meant exactly that making my cheeks burn even hotter. “I meant as a last resort. A long time from now. When we’re done with college or whatever. As like, a backup plan that will probably never need to be put in motion.”
His shoulders relax and the laser-focus in his eyes softens. “Oh.”
“Yeah, I just thought that might make us feel less stressed about that part, you know? That knowing we have a fail-safe in place might help us relax and let the ‘meeting someone to date’ stuff happen more naturally.”
He nods slowly. “I can see that, I guess.”
Relieved that he’s no longer watching me like I’ve sprouted a second head, I exhale. “Right? And surely, we’ll meet someone we want to bang before we graduate from college. If all the losers here can find a person to get naked with during six weeks of camp, we’ll be able to find someone in four whole years. I mean, my hair will grow, you’ll eat some cheeseburgers and meet girls who appreciate amazing facial hair. It will probably be easy, and we’ll feel silly that we ever made this deal. It will be something to laugh about when we’re old and on vacation with our spouses in the south of France.”
Sam arches a brow. “You think my facial hair is amazing?”
I shrug. “I don’t think it’s amazing, it is objectively amazing. That’s an impressive amount of facial hair for a person of any age, let alone a seventeen-year-old. And you don’t have any bald patches or straggly bits going down your neck or anything. You’re very lucky.”
“I shave,” he says. “It’s not luck, it’s a razor. I shave the scraggly parts.”