Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 92062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92062 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 460(@200wpm)___ 368(@250wpm)___ 307(@300wpm)
“Lay off your mother.” I hear my father beside my table. “She’s under enough stress at the moment, she doesn’t need more.”
“I didn’t do anything to her.” I hold my hand to my chest like she just did. “I just told her I’m not going to give her grandchildren.” He gasps. “Kidding, I said I was going to elope, isn’t that better?”
“Why are you this way?”
“I have been asking myself that question since she moved into my house,” Nate interjects and I glare at him.
“Trust me,” I hiss at him, “your house is the last place I would want to live.” I look back at Jack. “I’m coming to your house and sleeping on the couch.”
“Enough, you two,” my father hisses to us. “You two could never get along.”
“That’s not true,” I defend myself and at the same time Nate. “Also he started it.”
“Well, you finish it.” He turns and storms away.
“This is so much fun. We should do this more often,” I retort, turning to glare at Nate, who casually puts his arm around my chair, and I move it so he doesn’t touch me.
He chuckles as the wedding planner walks around the room explaining how the rules work. “It’s a fucking gingerbread house, how many rules can there be?” Jack grumbles.
“We will set a timer for one hour,” the wedding planner shouts in the room, and I look around to see everyone sitting down and ready to get this over with. “We have four people who will be the judges of all of this,” she says and I look down at my pieces. “We start in three, two, and one.”
I grab the icing bag and put some on the side of the house and then slowly put the sides together. “She has a surgical hand,” Jack says of me. “That’s not fair.”
“Just focus on your own, loser,” I tell him as I take an empty plate and grab the circular red-and-white mint candies and then decide I’m going to cut four small pieces and make it the chimney. I lay a long line of icing on the top of the roof and then put white-and-red small gumballs in a line. Then I do the same thing on the side but instead of the small gumballs I use the round candies. I’m so in the zone, I don’t pay attention to anything around me. So I don’t feel Nate get up and lean over to get something. I look up and it all happens in slow motion. The round tin in his hand slips out and falls right onto my house, I gasp, “Nate.” I push away from the table and his eyes are big, the sound of gumballs falling off the table and hitting the floor.
“Elizabeth,” he says my name, “I swear I didn’t mean it.”
“Oh my God,” I hear Evie say in a whisper, but it’s very faint because all I can hear is the echoing of my heart thrumming in my ears. And then a soft buzzing or maybe it’s a loud buzzing.
“It was an accident,” he tries to defend himself, but the anger rolls off of me and I move toward his house and grip the roof in my hands, crushing it.
“Elizabeth,” he says my name again but I’m too far gone. I take my hand and press down on the sides of the house. Jack and Evie push away from the table as I slide his house off of the table and it falls with one of the gingerbread trays. The sound of clanking fills the room and then I hear gasps coming from around the room.
“Oh my God,” my mother shrieks, “what did you do?”
“What did I do?” I point to myself, my hand full of icing. “What did I do? Look at what he did.” I point to my crushed house. “He ruined my house.”
“You two,” she hisses at us, “go and clean yourselves up.” She points to the side where the bathroom is.
“But, Mom,” I whine, sounding like a teenager all over again.
“Now.” She uses her mother voice, and I glare at him and storm off to the side where the sign for the toilet is.
I push open the door and walk to the side, grabbing a paper towel, and wipe off the icing from my hand before I turn the water on. I add soap to my hand and the door slams open from behind me, and I look into the mirror and see him coming in, a scowl on his face.
“Seriously,” he hisses, and I shake the water off my hands and turn it off before grabbing the paper towel and wiping them dry before turning around and facing him.
“Seriously,” I hiss back at him, “you did that on purpose.” I step closer to him, making me toe to toe with him.