Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 114011 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114011 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 570(@200wpm)___ 456(@250wpm)___ 380(@300wpm)
But when the screen loads, the flow of adrenaline peaks instead of recedes.
“What?” Val asks.
“Nothing.”
She rips the blanket off herself and springs toward me. My phone is in her hands before I know what’s happening.
“Cole friend requested you.” She looks at me with wide eyes. “Are you going to accept it?”
Am I? I don’t know.
“I need a second to—”
“There.” Val holds the screen toward me. “I made the decision for you.”
“Val!”
“He’s your son’s coach. He might need to talk to you about . . . baseball stuff.” She grins, her eyes sparkling. “Now come to the couch, and let’s scroll his profile.”
“Val . . . no,” I whine. “What have you done?”
She whistles through her teeth and walks backward to the sofa. “I’ve just found a spank bank, that’s what.”
I get to my feet and let out a fake cry. “Now I wanna see but I don’t want to wanna see.”
“Oh, trust me. You wanna see.”
I sit beside her and gaze at the tanned, muscled flesh on my screen. Damn.
There are pictures of Cole running in the surf. Images of him in board shorts on the beach with a bandanna tied around his head. There’s another of him at the top of a rocky incline with the ocean at his back. In every one of them, he’s nothing short of perfect.
I’m not sure what I like most as Val scrolls his profile. Is it his chiseled abs? The beautiful setting? His easy smile?
Or is it the way everyone around him seems to be having just as much fun as he is in every single picture?
“Oh, go back,” I say, ignoring Val’s amusement at my sudden interest. “No. The one before that. The one where he’s by the fire.”
She stops at a picture of Cole sitting in a backyard next to a bronze-colored firepit. The flames dance in warm, orangish hues.
He sits on the far side of the fire in a cream-colored sweater. His hair is a bit longer than it is now, and his face a bit sharper. He appears to be midlaugh, the lines around his mouth and eyes crinkling as he smiles so wide.
He’s glorious.
“That’s a good shot, huh?” Val says.
“Yeah. I wonder who took it?”
She looks at me out of the corner of her eye. “I don’t know. A friend, probably.”
“Yeah.” My throat goes dry, and I fight an odd sense of jealousy trying to erupt inside me. “Let’s keep going.”
I point at the screen at the exact moment that Val moves the phone closer to her. The simultaneous movement causes my finger to hit the little heart sign.
“No!” I hit it again, removing the red from the shape. “That won’t register anywhere, will it?”
Val laughs. “Yup. Sure will.”
I fall back to the pillows. “No. Tell me it won’t. I unliked it so fast. Maybe it’ll never show.” I look at her with fear. “Tell me it’ll never show. Lie to me, Val.”
“You can’t erase the notification on his end.”
I grab a pillow and cover my face. I feel heat pooling in my cheeks as I try to figure out how to make this all go away.
Val laughs louder. “And that picture was from three years ago!”
This time, my whine is real.
“He’s going to know you were trolling deep, Palm.”
“I’m blaming it on you,” I say, my voice muffled in the pillow.
“You’re like the Adele song, but ‘trolling’ instead of ‘rolling.’” She laughs. “That was funny. Come on.”
Val tugs on the corner until I finally give in. She takes in my flushed face and laughs a third time.
“You are a terrible best friend,” I say. Then I get up from the sofa and head to the stairs.
“Where are you going?”
“To bed.”
“But I’m still here.”
I stop at the top of the staircase. “You let yourself in. Let yourself out.”
“What about your phone?” She grins and dangles it in the air. It looks like a bomb about ready to explode. That’s what it feels like, at least.
I turn away from her and walk away. “Keep it. It’s your problem now.”
A knot forms in the pit of my stomach as I walk down the hallway. That might cause even more problems. Val, with my phone, and my log-in, and Cole’s photos.
Shit.
But the bigger problem? If only I believed, even for a second, that Cole won’t call me out on “hearting” his photo.
From. Three. Years. Ago.
Do I have a hat that can completely hide my face for practice tomorrow?
I sigh and climb into bed.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
PALMER
Have fun—”
My words are cut short by the door slamming shut. Ethan starts to jog across the outfield, where I parked behind the fence to put some distance between myself and the coach, but then he stops. He turns around in a wide circle and races back to the car.
I roll down my window and squint into the evening sun. “Did you forget something?”