Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 102355 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102355 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 512(@200wpm)___ 409(@250wpm)___ 341(@300wpm)
Outside, I’m loaded into the front seat of Cristiano’s SUV while Thalia, Mia, Annika, and Simone slide into the back.
“Do NOT press that button!” Simone warns them about the massage seats. “I learned my lesson last time I was in here. I still have bruises on my arse!”
I smile and lean my head against the cold window and fall asleep again. I don’t wake up until my door opens and my cheek loses contact with the glass. Cristiano is there, lifting me up again.
“I can walk,” I insist.
He doesn’t listen.
Oh well, if he wants to carry me for the rest of the night, I don’t see why it matters. There’s no one with us now that we’re back at his house. His house! He’s going to let me sleep here again. I revel in the delicious excitement. Two nights in a row. Lucky me.
“Cristiano?”
“Hmm?”
“I like you so much.”
I say the words into his shirt because I can’t say them to his face.
“I like you, too,” he says with a chuckle as he carries me inside.
My stomach twists with apprehension. Maybe it’s the alcohol or maybe it’s the sense of foreboding I’ve been stewing in the last few days.
“I’m glad you like me. I honestly can’t believe you like me…” I tilt my head and look up at him in the dark hallway. “But you can’t fall in love with me. I’m going back to California at the end of the summer, and if you keep looking at me like that, it’s going to make it so much harder. I’m serious. Stop.”
He tries to argue his innocence. “I’m just carrying you into the house.”
No he’s not. He’s undoing me.
It’s his eyes. No—everything about him is so romantic and potent, revealing and honest. I reach up, wanting to trace my finger along the hard line of his jaw.
“You can put me down now,” I say dreamily.
He doesn’t. He waits until we’re in his room, where he sets me carefully on the bench at the foot of his bed. His hands on my shoulders hold me steady for a moment as he waits to see if I’ll topple over. I tip my chin up and smile as if to say, Look at me! I’m sitting all by myself!
I stay put right there because he tells me to, and when he returns a moment later with another T-shirt for me, I lift my arms dutifully.
“This needs to be burned,” he growls with a playful edge, pointing at the ridiculous red tube top Simone and Annika picked out for me.
“It’s a nice shirt.”
His eyebrows lower in mock anger. “It’s a bra.”
Well, he’s technically half right since it has a built-in bra. I slip it off and cover my chest as Cristiano helps slide the shirt on over my head. Somehow, nothing about him seeing me partially naked feels sexual, not tonight. I shimmy out of the skirt and let his soft T-shirt cover me, hug against my body.
“Open” when he wants me to brush my teeth. “Drink” when he hands me a cup full of water. “Take these,” he says, gifting me two ibuprofen.
Then Cristiano goes into the bathroom to get ready for bed, and I crawl up toward my spot, diving beneath the sheets. I close my eyes and think of Winnie and the first time we got drunk together after sneaking into a USC frat party on her eighteenth birthday.
“Winnie, you have to be quiet! You’re going to wake up Mom and Dad!”
She riffles through the refrigerator, shoving soda cans aside and banging the bottom crisper drawer open and closed. “I’m trying to find the milk for my cereal! I know Mom just bought some!”
“You’re holding the milk, you dummy!”
She looks down at the jug of milk in her left hand and bursts out laughing. “How long have I had it?”
I can’t talk. I go sliding down the cabinet to the floor, laughing so hard tears spill down my cheeks. Nothing is funny and everything is funny. Winnie looks at me—one glance—and I know we won’t be coming up for air for another five minutes.
The memory sears.
I sit up with a sharp gasp and blink the tears from my eyes. Cristiano steps out of the bathroom in his boxer briefs, turning off the light behind him. He stills when he sees me sitting there trying to steady my breathing.
He comes to the edge of the bed and draws me against him, smoothing my hair.
“Are you okay, nena?”
No.
He doesn’t have to be kind; he’s already done enough tonight. He could tell me to roll over and go to sleep, tell me I’ll feel better in the morning. But he holds me until the sharp pain from reliving the memory starts to dull to a throb. He promises me it’ll be okay.
I don’t think I ever tell him I’m upset about Winnie, but he must know.