Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92779 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 371(@250wpm)___ 309(@300wpm)
“Then why are we having this conversation?” she argues, flailing her arms around like a scarecrow caught in a tornado. “If it’s no biggie, why do you look like your brain’s running faster than a double pedal drum?”
I don’t know what that means since I’m not surrounded by music the way she is, but I can guess simply because I know what my mind has been doing. I feel like there’s a hamster hyped up on speed and caffeine, running full throttle on a wheel to nowhere, while surrounded by strobe lights that’re flashing at a seizure-inducing rate.
The end result is . . . “I have no idea what I’m doing,” I admit heavily. “It’s not only the watching. It’s the talking, the hanging out, the—” I freeze, dropping my chin because I can’t meet her eyes as I confess, “I was jealous when a fan flirted with him at the festival and he didn’t shut it down. I had to sit there and act unbothered while she batted her lashes, draped herself on him, and basically offered to fuck him at his convenience.”
“What did he do?” she asks, naive hope sparkling in her eyes.
“Nothing.” I make it sound as awful as it felt to witness.
She arches a brow at me in a scarily similar way to how I look when I do it. “Did he go with her? Dance with her? Lie back and watch the embers float up into the sky? Touch her? Did he do anything to encourage her?”
As she lists off things Dalton could’ve done, I shake my head to each one, getting more frustrated by the item. “No, none of that. But he didn’t tell her ‘thanks but no thanks, skank’ either.” She looks at me in disappointment, not for Dalton’s lack of reaction, but my judging one. “I know! I’m frustrated with me too!”
When she stays silent, I finally tell her the rest. “I saw Marshall Cooksie. He’s home for the holiday. We caught up, and all the while, Dalton was glaring at me from the side of the dance floor like I was the one doing something wrong. And later, he came barging into my apartment acting like I was the type who’d take a guy home ten minutes after a spin around the dance floor. He was angry as hell, accusing me of this and that, and then . . . you won’t believe what he did.” I take a big breath, ready to tell her the worst of it. “He tried to kiss me!”
She blinks, her face perfectly neutral as she waits for something more. “He tried to kiss me, Hope,” I repeat.
“And you . . . didn’t want to kiss him?” she mutters slowly, puzzled with my anger.
I growl in frustration and remind her, “He’s an athlete, Shep’s friend, and gives away pony rides like he’s the county fair. So, no. I didn’t want to kiss him.”
She tilts her head, humming doubtfully, but when I scowl at her, she holds out her hands, talking softly like I’m a skittish dog that might bite. “Okay, let’s revisit what you did or didn’t, do or don’t, want. What happened when he tried to kiss you?”
The facts, just the facts. That I can give her. “I pushed him away and he watched me.”
It takes a solid three heartbeats of staring at me blankly before she realizes what I mean, then her eyes go so wide that I can see the whites all the way around the blue. “You let him watch you after all that?”
“Uh, more like . . . I made him watch? And then it was supposed to be his turn, but he left! Said my pussy is his, whether I want to admit it or not, and left like the purebred asshole he is.”
Hope’s jaw falls open, and I can almost hear the gears in her mind turning as she plays and replays what I’ve told her. Finally, a smile starts to bloom on her lips.
I flinch away from her in horror and point at her mouth. “Why does your face look like that?”
“I stand by my earlier statement. You like him, Joy. That’s what all this turmoil, confusion, and jealousy is. You like Dalton Days.” She sounds completely sure of the absolutely wrong conclusion she’s arrived at, and when I shake my head violently to disagree, her smile only grows wider. “You do. But you’re scared, so you don’t want to admit it yet. That’s okay.”
“I’m not scared of anything,” I counter, thrusting my chin into the air like the fearless, badass bitch I totally am. “And at most, I just hate him a little less than I used to, so don’t get all carried away.”
“Okay, if you say so. However, I’d like this moment noted for later, so I can brag that I was right when you finally admit to liking him. Because you do. Like him.” She’s grinning like the Cheshire Cat, so damn pleased with herself, and I’m equally as pissed off, snarling like a feral tomcat who’ll do anything to defend his territory.