Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 112892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 112892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 564(@200wpm)___ 452(@250wpm)___ 376(@300wpm)
He gave a faint smile. “Maybe. Does that sound crazy?”
I studied him. He had the face for it, that was for sure—the square jaw, those golden hazel eyes… it was the kind of look people instinctively trusted. He was on the soft-spoken side, but that kind of thing might make voters pay more attention and know he wasn’t just blustering. In my head, I dressed him in a fitted black suit. Of course, he looked amazing. Of course it worked.
Then I remembered the tattoo on his bicep and blinked. “Wait, can mayors have tattoos?”
“You saw that?” He sounded a little odd, and I wondered if he thought I’d been spying on him or something.
“Just the other day when your sleeve rode up.” My words sped up. “I didn’t mean anything by it, of course mayors can have tattoos…”
“It’s all good.” Aaron’s normal smile returned. “Hopefully someday I’ll find out.”
“You’ve got my vote.”
“Are you registered to vote in Tennessee?” His voice sounded teasing again, thankfully.
“Ohio.”
“Too bad. Maybe you can run my campaign instead. Didn’t you say your major was communications?”
“Digital media and communications.”
“That sounds like someone who can get a message across.”
I shrugged. “If I can make it through all the general ed classes first.”
His smile was understanding. Then a sound in the hallway made us both look up.
A young man, someone new, came into view.
“Hey, Cody,” Aaron called. “Can you give us a hand?”
But the young man had on large earphones and didn’t seem to hear him. His gaze was pointed down, but I still got a quick glimpse of his almost bronze hair. It was shaved on the sides and high on the top. His face looked like it had been chiseled out of marble. A sharp jawline. A Roman nose. Full lips and high cheek bones.
Then he was gone, and I stared at the spot he’d been in a second before. Something about him had triggered a flicker of recognition. Maybe I’d seen him around campus? Or maybe he just looked like a hundred other young men wearing headphones I passed by every day. He’d been wearing a light gray hoodie and jeans—again, very common among college students.
Though most of the guys in my classes didn’t look like that, like a model or something.
As the faint sound of Cody jogging up the stairs echoed down the hallway, I tried to shake the brief glimpse from my mind. But two questions kept floating through my head—where I might have seen him before, and what color were his eyes?
“He’s a good guy, just often in his own world.” Aaron sat up straighter, gazing at the mattress. “I think we can do this on our own.”
I laughed as we both stood. “Since when?”
“Since we couldn’t get anyone else to help.”
Our second attempt ended with me trapped between the bed and the wall, the heavy mattress pushing heavily against my thighs. The third attempt ended with Aaron crashing into the desk.
After that, it dawned on us to move the desk out of the way, and that helped. “Now we’re on the right track,” Aaron said.
“Fourth time’s a charm.” In truth, though, I was beginning to wonder if I’d have to sleep on the floor tonight.
Still, this attempt had promise. The mattress was standing upright on its side—but on the floor, not the bed. Consequently, it hadn’t taken out the ceiling fan or vice versa.
“What’s next?” My arms were tired, and my side ached even though Aaron had been doing the heavy lifting. “Can we just lean it against the box spring, then lift the bottom end up until it falls into place?”
“Sure, if we want you to be sleeping in the indentation again.” Aaron wiped the back of his hand over his forehead. He was probably really regretting offering his help.
For a moment, he was silent. Then he snapped his fingers. “I’m going to pull it toward the door, so we’ll have space to rotate it. You just hold that end upright.”
That seemed doable, since the mattress was already balanced on its side.
He crouched down, grasped both sides of the mattress, and pulled it toward the door. But he backed right into the dresser, causing him to swear and the lamp on the dresser to take a nosedive.
Somehow, he caught the cord before it smashed to the ground, but the lampshade detached and rolled right through the open door into the hallway, where neither of us could get to it at the moment.
That set us both laughing, which didn’t make the task any easier.
General chaos followed, with Aaron issuing random orders. “Stand on the right side. No, my right. Okay, now grab that handle. No, the other one. And stop laughing! If we’re not careful, we’re going to end up permanently entombed between the mattress and the box spring.”
“Like a dust ruffle,” I said, laughing harder.