Total pages in book: 41
Estimated words: 38804 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 38804 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 194(@200wpm)___ 155(@250wpm)___ 129(@300wpm)
Then the door was shut, locked, and he pushed me against the far wall. As I turned around, neither of us said a word. His mouth was on mine, and I answered him, sagging into him, and everything in my body was yelling out, “Yessssss.”
My clothes were pulled off, tossed onto the bench in the corner.
His were tugged off right after. His shoes. Everything was put on the same bench. He grabbed a condom from his wallet, then picked me up and walked me into the shower part. My back hit the wall. My legs wound around his back, and it wasn’t long before he had the condom on, his dick sheathed inside of me.
God.
It’d been so long.
Too long.
A part of me had missed this.
When this was over, I’d have to do some work to put that part of me asleep all over again. But until then, I began moving my hips over Cris as he was pounding into me, doing what we’d done in the past when we needed to fuck but we needed to be quiet. Our mouths were either on top of each other or we had our hands over each other’s mouth because sometimes, being quiet was hard. It was damn hard.
Today was the hardest it’d ever been.
4
MACKENZIE
A girl was waiting for me when I left my first class. She jumped up from a bench, hurrying to me. “Mackenzie! Hey.”
I paused, skimming her over. I didn’t know her. Auburn hair with blonde highlights. Big wire glasses set over hazel eyes. Caucasian. A little shorter than me with a stocky body type. She was wearing cover-alls that were made from some soft fabric and a t-shirt underneath. A necklace hung down from her neck with a single pearl at the end. She looked comfortable and trendy.
“Hi…?”
She held her hand out, a bright smile on her face. “My name is Kellie Rispins. I’m a blogger at Hoops & Secret Scoops. I cover a lot of different topics for the university. Do you have a minute? Could I ask you some questions?” She handed me her business card.
A blogger.
This happened a lot the first year, when they tried getting to me before I caught on to what they wanted. Mostly, they were friendly. They wanted to interview Ryan Jensen’s girlfriend. They meant well, wanted to portray me or us in a positive light, but there’d been some who had the ‘gotcha’ angle behind their blogs. They wanted dirt, and Ryan being as big of a basketball player as he was, they thought his name would jumpstart their career.
She had that look. It was small, and it was hidden well, but it was there.
I shook my head. “No comment.” I ignored her after that, heading outside and beginning to angle my way to check the mail area.
She caught up to me, a hand to my arm. “I’m not here to do you bad or anything, but you need to know something.”
I paused, but gave her hand a meaningful look.
She snatched it away, shuffling out of the way of oncoming people. Lowering her head and voice, she tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, saying, “I had to ask. What kind of journalist would I be if I didn’t, but I get it. I do. But, listen, you should know that a bunch of us got tips dropped in our DMs by a credible source saying that you were seeking treatment in a mental health facility this summer.”
My body went cold.
“Most times, mental health is off-limits, but we’re being told your treatment has been affecting Jensen’s playing. What affects Ryan Jensen, affects the team, and that is what everyone is mostly concerned about. So, do you have any comment that your mental health struggles have affected Ryan Jensen’s playing this year?”
This was a nightmare. It wasn’t my worst-case scenario, but it was up there. What I struggled with, had struggled with in the past was considered taboo. People didn’t want to hear about it. They didn’t want to hear the word that was used to describe it. Somehow, it got mixed up with other words and phrases like weak, giving up, coward. The truth was so much the opposite. Struggling with what I did, what Willow did, it was the hardest struggle to endure. It was crippling. It was a burden no one else could understand, and that was if they even wanted to understand.
For this girl to stand in front of me, ask me so casually, almost carelessly, about how my mental health was affecting Ryan? I wanted to sink my teeth into her neck and never let go.
She was waiting, watching me with an eagerness that had my blood boiling.
I took a breath and counted to ten.
God, Willow, if you were here? What would you say to this girl?