Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 57139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
She finally answered. “Depends. Do you want me to kick it or kiss it?”
We both froze, and again the room tensed like one small movement would either start or end everything. I was afraid to breathe so I just held my breathe like an idiot and watched the explosions of emotions cross her face.
“I mean—” she started, voice cracking.
“I’m more of a suck sort of guy,” I cut in quickly, shrugging like we were discussing sports scores. “Then again, this is all fake, so… you can just pretend you were able to fit your mouth around my cock. How’s that?” Bad visual, or good visual, however you looked at it the visual should not be visualizing because it wasn’t going to be doing me any favors and she was dangerously close to my body already. I could smell her lotion. It was enough. God it was enough just smelling coconut. I mentally slapped myself out of it. Focus. I needed to focus at the task on hand.
She shifted next to me, glaring at the ceiling like it was going to give her answers or something. “I refuse to visualize it.”
What a dirty little liar. Her cheeks were pink, her lips parted like she needed more air but forgot how to suck it into her mouth. That’s the thing about being best friends—you notice everything and she was thinking. About me. I leaned in until my breath brushed her ear. “Liar.”
She shivered—just slightly—before rolling to face the wall shutting me down completely. “Goodnight, Vex aka Ezra.”
I opened my mouth to say more but realized it was better for both of us if we slept. Who knew what tomorrow would hold and tonight had already been a shit storm. I needed strength. Sleep. Food. Hydration, and to stop being such a simp for her this early on. I was doing her a favor and if nothing came out of it. Fine. It was fine. The world wouldn’t burn and I wouldn’t jump off a cliff on purpose. We fell asleep like that. Both of us overly aware of every inch of space—and every inch of not space—between us.
The next morning after being kicked within an inch of my life and being elbowed in the spleen—I’m convinced on purpose, I woke to two things at once:
My phone buzzing nonstop.
The doorbell ringing like someone had broken the emergency glass and the fire department was trying to break in.
Across the bed, Harper groaned, dragging a pillow over her head. “Make it stop.”
I reached for my phone, eyes blurry I realized I’d stupidly slept in my contacts so it took me a few minutes to actually see the screen at first. One glance at the notifications had me swearing under my breath and sliding my finger cautiously across the screen.
This wasn’t going to be a normal morning. Not by a long shot.
The doorbell rang again, sharper this time—followed by a pounding knock, like whoever was out there thought they were collecting on a debt. Never mind, that was illegal now, so it had to be either the police, her angry parents, angry neighbors, or who? Who else could it possibly be?
“Tell them we died!” Harper mumbled into her pillow.
Not a bad idea. Except my phone was still vibrating like it had developed a pulse, and every glance at the screen made my stomach drop further. He’d called. Because of course he did. I’d come out of hiding—not on purpose, again, I forgot the internet was full of sleuths and people who actually cared. Of course he wasn’t one that cared about anything other than money and now I was in deeper shit because he’d come for her the way he came for me all those years ago when I was innocent and stupid.
Mentions. Tags. Old photos. Interview clips followed the several missed calls from him.
Her upload wasn’t just out there. It had detonated the internet.
Half the internet was arguing over whether I was really me. The other half was pulling receipts to prove it was.
The comments were a minefield:
OMG IT’S HIM.
I thought he disappeared.
Who’s the girl??
She’s not famous, she’s just a teacher, that girl doing the whole dating exes thing on TikTok.
She looks… fine, I guess.
Fine. They called her fine. My jaw flexed.
Another round of knocks shook the door. I glanced at Harper. She hadn’t moved.
“Should we paper, rock, scissors for it?” I asked.
“Don’t open it,” she said, voice muffled. “It’s probably a serial killer. Hey maybe they’ll finish the job, should I even look at my phone?”
“Hm, serial killer. Then I should definitely open it. Might be an improvement over this morning.” I shoved my phone in the pocket of the jeans I’d slept in. I earned a half-hearted pillow toss in my general direction from Harper, not sure if it was encouragement or more or less like answer so I could get back to sleep, but I kept walking anyways.