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)
When I shouldn’t notice her at all.
“You missed your morning workout?” She tsks me. “Such a truant.”
Glad she didn’t latch onto my subtext. “Yes. That’s me,” I say lightly. Friendly.
“Hmm. I’m not sure you’re a truant, though,” she says, like she’s musing on who I am. “I bet you’re here every morning. On the dot. Like a religion.” She takes a beat, her eyes twinkling. “Am I right?”
She’s more than right. She’s also more than friendly. I think. “Why do you say that?”
“You seem…let’s just say, the type,” she says, her tone confident, like a woman who knows what she wants.
The type. She’s already pegging my type. Okay, let’s do this. “What’s my type?”
“The type of guy who works out every morning,” she retorts, and a prickle of awareness slides down my spine. The sensation of being…known.
Then her gaze slides to my right arm. I’m wearing a long-sleeve workout shirt, but the cuffs are pushed up, showing some of my ink. “You have a tattoo,” she says, pleased, like she’s just unearthed a discovery.
“Yeah,” I say, and this feels so personal. Not the ink—the talking about it. I’m not sure if I should talk about it with her. Hell, I’m not sure about anything right now, especially how to volley with Harlow. Conversing with Ian’s daughter alone is a game, and I don’t have the rulebook. I’m playing in the dark, so I improvise. “Don’t you go to college downtown?”
“I do. Are you asking why I’m riding here, along the East River, instead of near where I live?”
Jesus. Could I be more transparent that I’m fishing for intel? Like, have you been looking for me every morning like I’ve been looking for you? I need to get a fucking handle on myself around her. “I guess I am asking that,” I admit, but I stop there. Giving nothing more away. I need to figure out the rules to this flirting game, stat.
“I don’t like traffic. Don’t you remember?” But she’s really asking, How could you forget?
That was shortsighted of me. She broke her ankle in Manhattan traffic seven months ago. I can’t believe I thought she was riding here for any other reason than emotional necessity. “Have you avoided the streets on your bike since last summer?”
“When I can,” she says, tone straightforward, not shirking away from the accident, just dealing with some kind of PTSD from that crash. “I don’t want to take a chance.”
“I’m sorry, Harlow. That’s rough.”
“It’s okay. Life happens, right?” There’s more to that remark, much more to unpack.
For now, I give a simple answer so I don’t make another mistake with her. “It sure does.”
“But it’s safer here anyway,” she says, her lips curving up again, a hint of a smile teasing me. “Because what are the chances a man in purple will save the day again?”
Her smile blooms fully.
The temperature in me spikes. I breathe out hard. Harder than before. I wish it were the exertion. I wish I weren’t thinking these thoughts about her.
And yet, my mind is wandering to so many places. My eyes will give it away.
I tear my gaze away from her and quietly say, “Let’s hope you don’t need that again.”
There. That’s…safe.
And I can look at her once more. When I do, she’s glancing down at the phone in its holder on her handlebars. “I have French class in thirty minutes,” she says.
I knit my brow. “I thought you were fluent.”
“I am. But there’s always something to learn so I’m taking French lit now.”
“You know Afternoon Delight takes place there? In Paris,” I add, in case she doesn’t follow the details of our Sweet Nothings spin-off.
She’s all Mona Lisa as she says, “I know, Bridger. I know.”
I heat up again. Is it January or June? “Of course you know,” I say.
A playful shrug. “But French lit waits for no one.”
“French lit,” I say, with a low whistle of admiration. “Enjoy.”
“J’aime toujours la littérature,” she says, and even though I don’t know French, I get the gist of her reply.
I also like the way the words sound on her tongue.
Something I shouldn’t like at all.
She tosses one more smile my way—I tell myself it’s just a friendly one—then presses hard against the pedals and blurs off.
I should look away as she rides. Stare at the river. Gaze at the buildings. But I watch Harlow until she blends into the rest of New York on a cold morning in late January.
When I walk into McCoy’s restaurant in midtown that afternoon to discuss Afternoon Delight with Ian, I feel like I have the start of a secret.
A dangerous one that would destroy our business if anything came of it.
Good thing my poker face is legendary.
6
MAYBE ACCOMPLICES
Harlow
On a Tuesday morning in April, I’m stretching in bed, alternating between texting my cousin Rachel about my upcoming trip to visit her and my aunt in San Francisco, and texting Layla and Ethan about my twenty-first birthday plans, when my phone pings with an email from my father requesting that I go shopping this afternoon—to help him—which can only mean one thing.