Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 73665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Thank goodness.
“Whoa! If you’re a taco hater, I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” I’m in panic mode. When Rowleigh straightens, he’s as green as a seasick dog. “We could get chili cheese fries. Nachos. Homemade ice cream. They have all of it.”
“I’m not going in there.”
What did tacos ever do to him? “Okay, well, that’s not a problem. We can just go for a walk along the water. I know of a few other places that aren’t that far, but they’re not once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Wait, no. Scratch that. This one little food shack has the best deep-fried pickles.”
He puts up a hand, green on green. “I just need a minute. Bad eating competition gone wrong back in the day. Terrible memories.”
That explains a lot.
I once threw up pizza. I couldn’t look at pizza again for years without dying a little inside. My mom explained to me in her best doctor voice that once the body thinks it’s been poisoned by something, it’s a biological imperative from our caveman brains not to want to eat it again. Self-preservation at its finest.
My brain puts all its might into Operation Comatose, checking out when I need it the most. I have…nothing. No alternative. No backup plan. It’s not dark enough to skinny dip or swing at the park, but I already established that while amazingly freeing, those activities run the inherent risk of getting us arrested, and that’s not exactly first-date material.
Not that this is a date.
Inspiration hits me as my brain starts running wild at the word date, trickling in all the X-rated off-limits images of Rowleigh, the lounge, and the piano.
Piano.
“Down by the water, they have a piano. It’s one of those public ones that’s been painted all funky. It’s in a little gazebo, and anyone can play it.”
I probably just imagine the way color rushes back into Rowleigh’s face. He looks decidedly less sick. Taco crisis averted.
Before my body can get all wobbly and off-kilter at all Rowleigh’s hotness within a one-mile radius, I set off. My flats come in handy as I powerwalk the eight blocks, and he easily keeps pace beside me.
He doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence until we get stuck waiting at a never-ending light at an impossibly long intersection for the lit-up man to start blinking. “Tacos is your idea of seizing life by the balls?”
Ouch. His voice is completely without inflection, but I can hear the roast in it. I get what he’s thinking. I’m not giving up my business deal and messing up my whole life for any kind of eats, no matter how good they are.
My brain very helpfully supplies a great counterargument. If he was eating your pussy or treating you to his hotdog, he might change his tune.
Thank fuck the light finally changes, and we can walk across. We have to hustle to make it to the other side of the long intersection before cars start zooming around us in all directions. Distractions are a great thing.
But the clouds crowding together in the sky and turning an ominous grey, and the wind suddenly picking up? Not so great.
I crane my neck up to check out the gathering gloom. I did check the weather before I caught the bus, and there was nothing about a storm of any kind.
We reach the piano five minutes later. Normally, the sidewalks are lined with people leaning against the railings overlooking the river or ambling along the walking paths. But there’s hardly anyone out tonight. No wonder, with the wind whipping itself into a sudden fury.
The taco idea was a bust, and now we’re about to get some kind of apocalyptic drenching. Would it be better or worse if it came with a side serving of zombies? Probably better. At least the night would be more interesting. There’s nothing like running for your life that can prove to you just how much you value being alive.
The piano is inside a little white gazebo. We duck under it just as the sky unleashes, dumping down a torrent of rain. The wind whistles through since the gazebo is open except for the railings, columns, and roof, blowing so hard that my sweater slides off my shoulders, and my hair turns into a messy hurricane around my face.
“I have to say, this is a great place to be trapped in the rain,” Rowleigh shouts in order to be heard over the roaring wind.
I can’t tell if he’s sarcastic or not. His face is perfectly expressionless. The wind turns his hair into a vortex, but instead of it being a tangled mess like mine, his dark tresses give new meaning to sexily windswept. I didn’t realize how humid it was, but now, the natural curl comes out, too, waving around his ears. It’s so freaking perfect that it doesn’t even get frizzy.