Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
“Well. I can’t believe I actually had fun in the snow today,” he finally said, shifting on the couch. “Being cold and having fun used to sound like an impossible thing to me.”
“Hey, are you saying skiing with me wasn’t fun the other day?”
He got up and started walking around the room, which only made it slightly easier for me to stop thinking about his cock. But then he made his way to the window and all I could focus on was his ass, which certainly wasn’t helping.
“You’re great at teaching skiing, Landry, but I don’t think I’m going to be an avid skier anytime soon,” he told me, giving me a wry look. “I felt like I was going to topple over even when I was standing still.”
“Well, if you ever get a random urge to give it another try, just call me up. I’m in my Los Angeles house often. We can go to Tahoe.”
Or we could have sex for seven days straight, or something. No big deal.
I swatted my urgent thoughts away like a fly.
“God,” Jamie said. “I still can’t believe you exist in California, too.”
I snorted. “What am I, some sort of rare monster that only comes out at weddings in the Rocky Mountains?”
He reached over and kicked me gently with his foot. “I’m just saying it’s hard to picture you anywhere but here. My own life in California feels like a completely different world than this.”
“Your roommate situation sounds like it might be kind of rough, too.”
Watching him walk around my suite was an exercise in self-control. I was the one who’d said we shouldn’t hook up, but now I was wondering if I was the dumbest man alive.
I was cockblocking myself, for fuck’s sake.
“I’m used to it by now,” Jamie was saying. “My roommates are good people, but I definitely don’t get much in the way of personal space. That was part of the reason I was so excited to come to this wedding. Getting a hotel room all to myself. It’s about a tenth the size of this one, but it’s been fucking incredible.”
I bit my lower lip. “Do you want to know something horrible?”
“I’m intrigued,” Jamie said. “I failed to put the moves on you, but hearing some juicy secrets might make up for it.”
I held up a finger. “First of all, you did not ‘fail’ to put the moves on me,” I corrected him. “Your moves worked, very, very well. I just think—”
“You think it’s not a good idea, and that I’ll get all feelsy on you, I know, I know.”
I bit down on my lip.
…Or it terrifies me that I actually like the idea of you getting feelsy, and my brain can’t handle that right now.
“In any case,” I said, “my dirty secret is that I was absolutely dreading coming to this wedding.”
Jamie’s jaw dropped. “What? I knew you hated weddings in general, but I didn’t think you could hate this one.”
“Do not repeat a word of this to Chase or Adam, because they’re awesome and I’m genuinely so fucking happy for them,” I said, lifting my brows. “But the idea of going to yet another wedding where everyone around me is so happy and celebratory and I’m here after another failed attempt to find my person… it all just sounded like torture.”
He clicked his tongue, shaking his head slowly. “I feel the opposite way.”
“Really? How?”
He leaned against the side of the couch. “Even when I’m single, weddings give me so much hope. They remind me that there’s true love in the world. I haven’t been to many weddings, but I’ve loved every single one.”
“And that is why you’re a better person than I am.”
“How many weddings have you been to?”
“I couldn’t even tell you if I tried,” I said. “At least a dozen, just in the past few years.”
“Christ,” Jamie said.
“For so long, I yearned for what the couples had. I wanted my forever person so, so badly that it made me sick. And then after my proposal to Parker imploded, something broke inside me. I couldn’t do it anymore. And I’ve been better off alone ever since.”
Jamie watched me with a scrutinizing eye, like he barely believed what I was telling him.
“Well, I won’t tell Chase or Adam your deep, dark secrets,” Jamie finally said. “If you don’t tell them mine.”
“And what’s that?”
“That I totally tried to make something happen with you tonight, even though you’re a skyscraper out of my league.”
I didn’t even try to hide my eye roll. “That whole ‘out of my league’ shit is so ridiculous. You’re well within mine, trust me, Jamie.”
“Oh, really?” he challenged me, a sparkle in his eye. “You want to know how much I pay for most of my clothes? Five dollars for T-shirts at the thrift store, and sometimes an eight-dollar splurge for a long-sleeve. After I pay rent and help out my mom with money every month, I have to choose what to eat based on which coupons are reusable that week. And I’m pretty sure my roommates have heard my favorite adult viewing material through our paper-thin walls, even when I try to keep it at low volume.”