Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 145746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
My eyebrows shoot up. I didn’t even think she knew I was here.
“I’ll be leaving soon.” I tie the leather strap on my notebook and stand. “If you want to be left alone I can—”
“No, it’s fine.” She clears her throat and nods toward one of the other nearby lawn chairs. “You mind if I…?”
“It’s your girlfriend’s apartment,” I say dryly. “That probably gives you first dibs, or do you live here?”
“Live here? With Petra?” She laughs and drags one of the chairs close before sitting down. “We just met at the beginning of the semester. I live on campus. Besides, Petra’s too messy.”
“The place looks pretty clean to me.” I grin.
“Yeah, ’cause I spent the afternoon cleaning it.” She drops her head back, the elegant line of her throat moon-kissed. “It’s why I’m exhausted now.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Eyes still closed, she allows a small grin. “She knows how much I enjoy cleaning.”
“That makes one of us. My mom would kick my ass if she saw the state of my apartment most days.”
She sits up, humor in the wry glance she gives me. “Yeah, my aunt was not having a dirty house when I was growing up, so I learned to clean fast.”
“She raised you?” I ask. “Your aunt?”
Her expression closes off. Oh, shit. Maybe that was a pretty intrusive question.
“I’m sorry.” I lean forward. “It’s none of my—”
“It’s fine, yeah. My aunt Rosalyn—we call her Roz—raised me when my parents died.”
“You lost both parents?”
“In a fire, yeah.”
“Wow. That’s tough.” I hear the inadequacy of my sympathy. “I mean, I’m sorry that happened.”
“It’s okay.” She draws in a breath and leans back, stretching her legs out in front of her. “It was years ago.”
I try not to get distracted by the sleek, curvy length of her body in repose, but it’s not working. I clasp my hands and lean forward, elbows on my knees.
“What about your parents?” she asks. “Since you kinda stepped in it asking the poor orphan girl about her dead folks, you have to bare your soul a little.”
That elicits a chuckle from me, and my shoulders relax, even though I hate discussing my family.
“Divorced.” My voice goes flat, but I keep a smile pinned in place.
She searches my face in the dim light of the porch, and I wonder what she’ll find. Not that I’ve demonstrated it at this party, but I’m usually one of those guys who seems like an open book. Most only get an abridged version. Not so much an open book as a gutted one, with only a table of contents, some of the funny parts, and if you’re lucky, a few footnotes left. Most of the story I tore out, balled up, and swallowed years ago.
“Bummer,” Verity replies. “How long ago was it?”
“My senior year in high school. So four years. It got ugly, and coming to Finley felt like an escape.”
I’ve shocked myself with how forthcoming I am, but she merely nods, all the while toying with the hem of her frothy skirt.
“Any brothers or sisters?” she asks.
“One older brother and a younger sister. They actually stayed there instead of going to college and they work with my father now.”
“What’s your father do?”
“He’s a pastor.”
Her brows go up and her pretty mouth falls open. “No way.” She recovers with a grin and leans forward, mirroring my posture and resting her elbows on her knees, too. “So are you, like, religious?”
“Not really. I believe in God. I just don’t believe in people as easily as I used to.”
Whatever is left of my faith is buried under cynicism and channeled into my music, which I still think of as a gift from God. I’m not getting into church stuff with the girl I’m both coveting and lusting over.
“Church is complicated,” she says. “My aunt Roz was super-active in our little Baptist church growing up, but when she came out and was open about having a girlfriend, they kind of kicked her out.”
“For real? I mean, I’ve seen the homophobia firsthand, of course, but to kick her out?”
“It broke her heart, but now she’s found a church that’s more accepting of her and the woman she married.”
“So I guess it wasn’t a big deal when you came out?”
“I don’t know that I ever had to come out.” Her smile is full of affection. “Aunt Roz and Aunt Grace were together when I had to go live with them. Queerness had always been normalized for me, so when my first crush was a girl, I didn’t think twice about it. And they didn’t make a big deal, like celebrate with a we got us another lesbian party or anything.”
That catches me off guard and I bark out a laugh, which coaxes an easy smile from her.
“I honestly wasn’t even sure I liked boys, like at all,” she goes on, “until around the tenth grade.”