Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 60231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60231 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
He sits on the chair across the coffee table and takes a drink. I wonder what he’s thinking with that glimmer in his eye, but I don’t ask. I’m not exactly in the driver’s seat.
The sun streams in the windows, filling the living room with a bright warmth that seeps into every corner. This house has always had a tranquility about it. Before Poppy passed away and we’d come here so Luke could help his grandfather in the barn, it was always so peaceful. No matter the stress at home, or drama at school, or worries about whatever deal my father was trying to make on my behalf, it all melted away in this house.
“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Luke says. “You’re not getting married and fled the scene. Then you showed up here, performed a felony to get into my house, and now … what?”
I smile sheepishly. “I kind of … don’t have a plan.”
“So you just tied me up in one of your shenanigans that will be one of the year's biggest scandals. Awesome.”
“Oh, don’t act like you don’t love a good shenanigan.”
“Not the point,” he says, grinning. “I also love a good tie-up, but that’s not the point either.”
My stomach muscles contract at the heat in his gaze. “I didn’t know where else to go.”
“Hey, it’s not bad for my ego that I was the only person you could think of when you were running from Tom fucking Waverly.”
I smirk. “I said I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. Not who else.”
“Okay.” He rolls his eyes. “How many houses do you own again?”
“How did you say it? Not the point.”
We exchange a small smile that fills me with big emotions—namely, comfort.
Luke and I could’ve been a perfect match in another time and place.
I’ve replayed the day we broke up more times than I’ve replayed any other event of my life. That moment impacted me more than any charity work, music award, or concert I’ve ever performed. A sunny afternoon, Luke in black-and-yellow flannel, standing in his parents’ driveway. Luke didn’t ask me to stay with him, and I didn’t ask him to go. It’s haunted me ever since. But after each review, I’m left with the same conclusion: it ended the only way it could’ve.
I rest my glass on my dress as a lump rises in my throat. “I can’t go to any of my homes. Tom’s team is crafting his image-saving statement as we speak, and it will not do me any favors. The paparazzi will case my houses and the airport. They’ll even dispatch reporters to places they think I might go.”
“Where are you going to go?”
I gulp. “I don’t know. Maybe I could stay here?”
The words fly out of my mouth before I can stop them. Before I can think them through. My brain forms sentences and tells my lips to say them, to backtrack my word vomit and save face. But my heart, my stupid, stupid heart, blockades the effort.
My chest burns with anticipation as I watch Luke take a piece of gum from his pocket, put it into his mouth, and chew deliberately. His gaze holds mine with suspicion, fire, and something else I can’t quite name. The mixture feeds the pang in my chest.
“I think you staying here would be the worst idea you’ve ever had,” he says after a long pause. “And you’ve had some epically shitty ones.”
“Now you’re just being a dick.”
“Want me to rattle off a few? Fine,” he says before I can answer. “You bought a car from a man known as Lemonade Larry because all he sold was lemons.”
“Okay, but you tried to drag race a cop. That’s even dumber.”
“You tried to polar plunge in Peachwood Creek in a bikini and ended up falling on the ice and giving yourself a concussion.”
“Fine, but you ran butt naked through the middle of town to celebrate the football team going to the state finals and got blackmailed by a stranger who may or may not have had pictures of you performing the Electric Slide on Main Street in nothing but a jock strap.”
He narrows his eyes. “There was alcohol involved.”
I narrow mine right back. “Like that’s an excuse.”
Slowly, our lips curve into a smile, and before we know it, we’re laughing.
“Can I stay?” I ask.
“No. You’ll cramp my style.”
“You don’t have a style.”
He takes out another piece of gum and pops it into his mouth.
“I’ll pay rent,” I say as sweetly as possible.
“Rent? How long are you talking about? I have a life, you know.”
“I told you—I didn’t plan this out.”
“Clearly.” He gets to his feet and moves to the kitchen doorway. “I can’t take you seriously in that thing.”
“In what thing?”
His eyes scan the length of me. “It’s so … fluffy.”
“So?”
He shrugs. “I never pictured you in a fluffy wedding dress.”