Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
“Young people. Always so PC,” he says with an eye roll as he closes the dishwasher.
“It’s not PC to call a woman a woman,” I correct.
“What is it then?”
“The way you should talk, Ian,” Bridger says decisively.
“See?” I retort with a cocky tilt of my head.
Dad laughs like he’s just so amused by me. “Send them to college, this is what happens.” He turns his full focus back on Bridger. “Good thing for Lucky 21 that you and I aren’t the same generation,” he says.
No kidding. Dad’s in his late forties. Bridger is thirty. His birthday’s in late March.
“Why’s that, Ian?” Bridger asks.
“Gives us an edge that you’re younger, since you know how people should talk these days,” Dad says.
“You could learn too,” Bridger counters, and wow. That’s hot, how he talks to my dad, standing his ground. “And that might also be why we have different ideas of what makes a relationship work, Ian,” he says, smirking, perhaps a sign that he knows more than the industry knows about my dad. It’s no secret he’s been married four times. But I’m not sure his philandering ways are common knowledge. But Bridger must know.
What does he think of my father’s affairs? He can’t possibly condone them.
“What makes a relationship work, then?” Dad asks, reaching for an open bottle of wine from the kitchen counter and pouring the rest into a fresh glass. “Shared interests? Common beliefs? A little humor?” He asks as if those are totally unbelievable.
Bridger leans against the counter, scratches his jaw. It’s a power move, casually gearing up to win this poke-prod debate with my father. “All that,” he says, then takes a beat before he delivers the punch, “and knowing all the lyrics to every song in Ask Me Next Year.”
I swallow a gasp.
He says that last line with a wry smile.
I’d told myself my crush was over. I’d almost tricked myself into believing it. But inside, I thrill at the words. I know all the lyrics to the musical Ask Me Next Year.
Every single one in every single song.
Does Bridger know that?
Is that comment for me?
Dad laughs. “You win this round. You and your show tunes. You know, Harlow is a Broadway baby. She loves all musicals,” he says, then checks his watch. “Need to make a call.”
On that, he breezes out of the room, down the hall, and out of sight.
I don’t move a muscle. I’m still vibrating here in the kitchen. Finally, I look up at Bridger, meeting his inky-blue gaze.
There’s no strategy, only instinct as I, almost under my breath, repeat the chorus to the bittersweet ballad in the show.
“He Can’t Be Mine.”
Bridger turns to me slowly. “What did you just say?” His question comes out quieter than the dark night.
But I don’t utter those words of longing again.
Instead, I say, “It played for two months in 1998.” I’m warm everywhere as my heart climbs into my throat. My insides are spinning. I’m sure my feelings are tattooed across my face, living, breathing ink marks saying I have it bad for you.
“And hasn’t been revived since, much to the chagrin of musical theater diehards everywhere,” he says, and his eyes sparkle as he stares at me with…wonder.
“Yes. Much to the chagrin,” I add.
I can’t stay this close to him without revealing everything, so I retreat to the living room and open a book I left on the coffee table the last time I was here. But the pages are full of drunk lines weaving in front of me. I can’t concentrate. I’m tipsy just being near him.
5
SOME MORE SOME TIME
Bridger
I’m not thinking of her that way.
I’m not thinking of my business partner’s daughter like that. I’m not feeling a thing for her.
But for the first time ever, across the living room, drinking my iced tea, I am.
I’m looking at her like…she’s not his daughter.
I’m noting her, every detail. Lush chestnut hair, pink lips, a delicate throat. Pale skin.
Her green eyes are flecked with gold. Have they always been flecked like that? Has her skin always been so creamy? Her red sweater hugs her chest, and her jeans meld to her legs. She’s tall in those black boots with a zipper up the side.
Was she always tall? Always lithe?
I don’t even know. I probably shouldn’t know.
But I know this—my chest is painfully tight, like someone’s turning a key in a jack-in-the-box, over and over. Tightening me. This feeling can’t be healthy. This must be heartburn. Or a panic attack?
Except it’s not.
It’s something else.
Something all too familiar.
Something I know well. Something I shouldn’t feel for Ian’s daughter.
I desperately want to be unaffected by her clever reply, I absolutely want to let the hopeful note in it slide right off me like I do a thousand comments about a thousand things every day. But she’s no longer the girl on the bike who I took to the ER one day last summer.