Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
“Let’s get back to Lolo having sex with Javi,” Shanti said.
“We didn’t have sex,” I informed them.
Everyone focused on me.
“But we did have our first kiss. And our second. Also our third.” I tried counting. “All the way to, I think, our twelfth, the one that just happened in his truck, but I think there were more like three in the truck. I don’t know how to count when our lips didn’t disconnect, but the kiss took a different direction, if you get my drift.”
I got five happy nods.
They got my drift.
“And I lost track of how many times we kissed when we were rolling around on his bed this morning,” I concluded.
“Rolling around on his bed?” Jessie queried.
I nodded. “We slept together. I mean, I didn’t know we were going to, but I’m glad we did so he didn’t have to freeze on his couch. He doesn’t have a throw blanket.”
I notched asking Javi if I could buy him a throw blanket on my mental to-do list.
“Is he a good kisser?” Willow asked into my mental list making.
“I’ve been awake for two and a half hours and we’ve kissed twelve times, maybe more, so the answer to that is hell to the yeah,” I said.
Everyone smiled.
I was already smiling.
“So…” Shanti urged.
Drat it.
Oh well, I’d have eventually told them (probably). Might as well do it now.
“Okay, so, even though Javi and I haven’t fully talked it out yet,” I started, “I’m sensing I kinda get why Javi was mean to me after he dragged me out of Oceans 44.”
“You mentioned that last night. So, spill. How was he mean to you?” Luna asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t want to say because I don’t want you to think badly about him,” I answered. “Just, I thought he didn’t like me. But he cleared things up last night about that part. He likes me.”
More smiles, maybe because I was smiling like crazy.
“But I was really bummed when I thought he didn’t like me,” I carried on. “He wanted to explain himself, but that was just how bummed I was. I wasn’t giving him the shot. He wasn’t into me not giving him a shot, so he took his shot regardless, and in the interim, we found out my apartment had been searched. This stalled our full discussion. We’re going to finish tonight.”
“The street stud and the private school princess,” Shanti remarked.
Everyone turned to her.
“What?” Raye asked.
“The dude has it going on,” Shanti said. “But he grew up on the street. His mom resides in a mental institution and she’s never getting out. Lolo’s parents are doctors, her mother and brother are surgeons, and they hire people to put up their Christmas decorations instead of doing it like every good All-American family should. Together while drinking hot cocoa with the mac and cheese bubbling in the oven, which they’ll consume after the decorations are up, then somehow, they’ll descend into bickering or a full-blown fight.”
I could see comprehension rising in my crew.
And…yeah.
This was part of those threads I’d been trying to grab onto this morning.
“Dude’s gonna hesitate,” Shanti went on. “Don’t blame him. Especially if the woman he likes is brushing him off.” She focused on me as my heart squeezed. “That’s not a commentary on where you were at. I’m sure you had your reasons. I’m just sayin’, I see where he was at. I also see, he shows at a classy restaurant where you’re looking cute on a date, even a fake date, it’s gonna tweak him because he’s seeing in real time the life you lived that he didn’t. Then he sits down with you at said restaurant, you get huffy and walk away from him, well, that’s gonna tweak him too. Why he lashed out?” She shrugged. “No idea. Also not okay. But I see the triggers.”
I did too.
I so did.
“So you guys are, you know…exploring this now?” Willow asked.
I lifted a shoulder to try to be nonchalant about how excited I was about it.
I failed at being nonchalant and ended up grinning, and maybe I bounced on my toes (twice).
This got me reciprocating grins all around.
Though, I didn’t want to get too excited. It was really new, and Javi and I still had a heavy talk on the schedule.
In order not to let my excitement get out of hand, I changed the subject.
“So, okay, what did I miss while all that was happening?” I asked.
“Not much,” Raye answered. She then went forth to fill me in on stuff I already knew. “Except Cap’s lost hold on his inner caveman, and Eric’s exposed he has one too. We have bodyguards. And they think they’re taking over this case.”
“Can I, at this juncture, ask why we wouldn’t let trained private detectives with years of experience take over a case that got suddenly scary really damned quick?” Willow queried an excellent query.