Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77959 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“We’ll be here,” Mac says, flipping on the television.
Swinging open the door, I groan when I find Levi on the other side with his hand ready to knock.
When will this night end?
“Hey, hold this.” I shove Muffin’s leash at him before he has a chance to say anything and turn back to my apartment. Going to my bedroom, I quickly grab his jacket and head right back to the door without looking at the couch, where I can feel two sets of eyes watching me. I have no doubt both my sisters are smiling.
“Night, Levi,” Libby calls, and I shut the door quickly, cutting off the sound of her and Mac laughing.
Feeling my face heat in embarrassment, I shove his jacket into his chest without looking at him, muttering, “Here’s your jacket. Thanks for letting me borrow it,” while attempting to take Muffin’s leash from his tight grasp with my free hand.
“Are you taking her out?” he asks, placing his fingers under my chin and forcing me to look at him.
“Yeah.”
“I’ll go with you.” His hand drops away, and he finally takes his jacket from me. At a loss for words, I watch him as he walks the four steps to his apartment—still holding Muffin’s leash—opens his door, and tosses the jacket in carelessly before slamming the door.
“You don’t have to come with us. We’re just going across the street to the park.”
“I don’t mind.” Okay, what the hell do I say to that? I don’t want you to go with me because you make me dizzy and I don’t know how to act when you’re close?
“All righty then,” I murmur instead, catching his lips twitch before I drop my gaze to the top of Muffin’s head so I can avoid looking at him.
Heading down the stairs with Muffin leading the way, we leave the building and walk in silence across the street to the park. I expect Muffin to do what she always does as soon as we make it to the grass—which is take care of business quickly before dragging me back home—but tonight is apparently not that kind of night. No, tonight my dog has decided she needs to sniff every single blade of grass and stop at every tree as we walk slowly down the tree-lined path.
“Your sisters seem nice,” he says, breaking the silence, and I turn to him and find his beautiful eyes on me.
“They are, but they are also crazy.” I kick a pebble, watching it fly through the air and bounce a few feet away before rolling into the grass.
“I doubt they have anything on my brothers.”
“You have brothers?” I tilt my head back toward him, again watching him smile.
“Yep, three. All younger.” Studying him with the dim light coming from the streetlamps above us, I try to guess how old he is.
“I’m thirty.” He nudges my shoulder with his, and I duck my head, wondering how he knew what I was thinking.
“How old are you?” he asks, stopping to let Muffin sniff another tree.
“Twenty-seven in three days.”
“You’re still a baby.”
“I guess if I were an old man I’d think twenty-seven was young, too.” I smile, enjoying the sound of his deep laugh as it rumbles through the quiet night. “So, do your brothers live in the city?”
“No, they all live in Connecticut near my parents, in the town we grew up in.” He stops and pulls me close to him as a man jogs by, then lets me go once he’s passed, and we resume walking. “Our mom would lose her mind if any one of them left with her grandkids.”
“Do all of your brothers have kids?”
“Yep.”
“But you live here in the city.”
“I do.”
“So you don’t have kids?” I surmise, watching a slow grin spread across his face.
“Nah, no kids. Not yet anyway.”
“Cool,” I mumble like an idiot, silently begging Muffin to hurry up so I can get home before I make an even bigger fool of myself.
“Are you cold?” he questions, and I realize I’ve half disappeared into my windbreaker, trying to escape the freezing wind that has suddenly picked up.
“A little. It’s been so warm during the day, I keep forgetting how cold the nights are.”
“Come here.” He wraps his arm around my shoulders, and my body stiffens. “Relax, I’m just keeping you warm.” Relax? Is he crazy? How the hell am I supposed to relax when he’s touching me? It’s bad enough being around him, let alone feeling his warmth against my side and his smell of clean soap and musk suffocating me. “What are your plans for your birthday?”
“I . . . um . . .” Oh god, he’s short-circuiting my brain. I can’t even get a full sentence out.
“That sounds fun.” He chuckles, and I smack his abs without thinking.
“Don’t make fun of me.”
“Gorgeous, I’m not making fun of you. I think you’re adorable when you get all flustered.”