Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 84952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Bellamy reads right through my attempt at evasion.
“And who might your friend be? Because it’s not me. And not that I’m your only friend or anything, but I do feel like I would know if you had plans to go to dinner with someone.”
Her tone is teasing but pointed enough for me to know she’s going to press until she has an answer. There’s also enough of a smugness to tell me that she already knows the answer.
I hold back a laugh. “You’ll be pleased to know that I took your advice.”
“This is starting off strong.”
“Your girl over here talked to her mother about Jack’s event and put my foot down. I told Mom that she wouldn’t be picking out my date. Period.”
She pauses. “So, you’re going alone?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She sighs before smacking her lips together again.
“What are you eating?” I ask.
“Cheetos. The hot ones. My mouth is on fire.”
I laugh.
“Don’t try to distract me,” she says. “I know where this is going, but I’m going to make you tell me.”
“Why?” I whine, hoping I’d managed to get away with not telling her. It’s not a big deal. But just in case things don’t work out the way I imagine, it would be easier not to have to explain it to Bellamy later.
“Because it’s more fun that way,” she says. “Also, I knew this whole thing between the two of you wasn’t over last night.”
“What are you talking about? There’s no whole thing between me and anyone.”
“You might be able to trick yourself or him or your mother or whoever, but you aren’t going to trick me.”
“I’m not trying to trick anyone,” I tell her, slipping out of my jeans.
“Good. Because I saw you with the hottie last night. I saw the way he looked at you like he wanted to eat every part of you and—”
“Ew!”
“Don’t ew that. You write way too much off too early.”
“Anyway …” I say, trying to distract her.
“Anyway, I saw the way he looked at you and the way you looked at him—which was not a whole lot different than he looked at you, but I’ll keep my descriptions vanilla to protect your innocent little ears.”
I laugh, bobbling the phone between my hands long enough to slip out of my shirt.
“I almost called Boone and bet on how long it would take you to see him again,” she says. “But I got distracted by Suit.”
“How’d that go?”
“It went. He accidentally called me late last night, and I purposely picked up. We talked for a bit, and then he came by and stayed for a while. I’ll let you fill in those blanks,” she says, sighing. “But he left before dawn. I probably won’t see him again.”
I make a face. “And why not? Was he weird?”
“No. He was fine,” she says, brushing him off like a crumb off her shoulder. “Just not for me.”
“You do realize that you’re going to end up murdered in your sleep one of these days.” I take the dress off the hanger. “You need a hotel room that you can use to meet up with guys in or something.”
“I have a security system. If I get murdered, find the footage in the cloud and nail that sucker to the wall.”
I laugh. “I’m glad you’ve planned ahead.”
“You know me. I’m always planning.” She laughs too. “So back to … what’s his name again?”
“Hollis.”
The name ripples off my tongue.
“That really is a great name,” Bellamy says. “And it matches him. You know, it’s really weird when people don’t match their names. Like when you meet a beast of a man, and his name is Clyde. But then you might walk into the library and spot a geek sitting by the history section, and his name is something like Mauricio. So sexy.”
I put Bellamy on speakerphone long enough to tug the dress over me. I smooth the lines out around my hips and then adjust the wrap to cinch my waist and enhance my boobs.
“Not bad,” I mutter, checking myself out again.
“Where are you going with Hollis?”
I pick up the phone and take her off speakerphone. “I actually don’t know. It’s a dinner he was invited to, and they asked him to bring his family. He’s in town alone and doesn’t know anyone but me. So I’m going with him.”
“That’s convenient. Lucky you. And you might get luckier if you don’t get all weird about it and start ruling things out before they can become options.”
“That’s already been taken care of,” I say, running my fingers through my hair. “We’re going to the dinner and Jack’s thing from a baseline of friends. It doesn’t matter as much tonight for his thing, but Mom has to think I’m taken so she stops trying to match me with random men. We just need to sell it so that Mom thinks I’m forming a friendship with Hollis to see if more is there post-graduation since he doesn’t live here.” I shrug and drop my hand. “So we’re friends. It’s completely platonic.”