Total pages in book: 186
Estimated words: 176552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 883(@200wpm)___ 706(@250wpm)___ 589(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 176552 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 883(@200wpm)___ 706(@250wpm)___ 589(@300wpm)
It was all Ryder’s fault.
Mostly.
Being for real, I blamed the creepy dickhead who decided to give me a haunting pageant wave at one in the morning before skipping off into the shadows like a horror movie reject. I rushed out of Ashton’s building with my hair still damp and a chill clinging to my skin. My bag was slung over one shoulder, boots clicking against the pavement. I moved fast, weaving through half-asleep students with coffee I was tempted to steal, looking as miserable to be up as I felt. I wouldn’t have time to grab my beloved espresso this morning, and that was enough to make me have a small breakdown.
When I finally made it to the parking lot, I spotted Ashton leaning against his car, phone in hand, talking to someone. His jaw was tight, the crease between his brows deep enough to tell me it wasn’t a pleasant conversation. The second he saw me, an easy smile slid across his face, and without hesitation, he told the person on the other end, “I gotta go.”
“You didn’t have to end your call,” I said as I reached him.
“And not give you my undivided attention?” he shot back smoothly, like the argument he’d been in seconds ago had never happened. “You look good in that.”
I smiled, more out of habit than anything else, and climbed into the passenger seat, shutting the door behind me. As I buckled up, I glanced down at what I was wearing. A cropped pink sweater, high-waisted black jeans, and my favorite black ankle boots. Not exactly groundbreaking, but comfortable and good enough to call for the compliment he had given me.
The drive to campus was calm. Morning sunlight filtered through the trees and gave our town a catalog-worthy look. I wasn’t skilled like Cloe with my photography skills, but the scenery was so pretty that I pulled up my camera to snap a quick moving photo. Afterward, I stared at the screen of my phone a little longer than necessary, trying to think of how to bring up everything from yesterday.
“Who were you talking to on the phone earlier?” Slipped out instead.
His fingers paused mid-tap against the steering wheel, just for a second before picking up again. That was an odd reaction. I wasn’t asking to be accusatory. I was genuinely curious. Now I was a bit more than that.
“Sarah,” he tossed out casually.
“Sarah? Which one? We go to school with like twelve.”
“She doesn’t go here. Not yet, anyway,” He replied, keeping his eyes on the road.
I hesitated before asking, “Okay…do I know her then?”
“It’s Sarah Myers.”
For a second, I thought I misheard him. “Sarah Myers? As in Ryder’s Sarah?” I pressed, the name echoing in my mind with unwanted clarity.
“She wasn’t…” He let out a quiet breath through his nose, his grip on the wheel tightening. “They never dated.”
“Yeah, I wouldn’t call what they were doing dating either.”
He didn’t defend her or explain why he had been talking to her first thing in the morning. He just kept driving, adding nothing further. Was that supposed to end the conversation? I turned to the window and launched into a quiet self-discussion about how men were idiots. No, that wasn’t fair. I was friends with quite a few good ones, and I was confident in assuming they would have known this kind of conversation with your girlfriend needed at least a little elaboration. A who, what, why moment. Even a “don’t worry, it’s nothing” thrown in for effort.
I got radio silence and a view of trees blurring past while Ashton adjusted the volume like we hadn’t brushed shoulders with a fight I didn’t have the energy to finish, let alone begin. And I didn’t want to start it. I already knew it wouldn’t fix anything. I was starting to notice cracks we couldn’t patch. The kind that went deeper than a bad morning or a disagreement. I guess some of that was my fault, though.
I thought back to how he looked while on the phone and wondered what the two of them could have been talking about. Sarah and I had always been polite in that fake, passive-aggressive way girls mastered young, but we were never friends. After Ryder ended whatever it was that they had going on, she started carrying this weird energy toward me. I swear she made herself believe I was the reason it didn’t work out, and not her best friend, who broke every kind of girl code that existed by trying to sleep with him too. He didn’t do it and removed himself from the equation altogether.
None of that had anything to do with me.
I could say without a reasonable doubt that my best friends would never go for a guy I was remotely interested in. I couldn’t even entertain the thought of doing that to them. It would be gross and grounds for getting my ass beat.