Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
It was her turn to laugh. “No poo, but we have peed in front of each other a lot over the years, haven’t we?” she asked with an almost dreamy expression on her face.
I knew exactly what she was envisioning: all the awesome hikes we’d gone on, which included the dozens of times we’d had to keep an eye out for each other when other hikers came by. We’d had a lot of fun over time, and it made me so happy that she genuinely enjoyed all of our adventures back home.
My friend shrugged and took her time eyeing me up and down. “And you, my glowing angel, look like a fifteen.” She wiggled her eyebrows and ignored the noise her makeup artist made at the movement. “I’ll forgive you for cheating.”
I rolled my eyes. “Cheating. Right.”
“It’s the hormones. You got that natural glow this half-inch of highlighter and bronzer can’t compete with.” She whistled, and I curtsied about as much as I could, which wasn’t much considering how tight this dress was. “I bet Kaden’s going to shit himself when he sees you.”
His mention surprised me for about a split second. I hadn’t heard his name in . . . a year? One of his songs had come on while I’d been in the car with Jackie and Amos, and the two had started instantly booing before changing the station. That had been the last time I’d thought of him too, and that had been brief.
“If he shits himself, I hope someone catches it on camera,” I joked, adjusting the strap of the dress I’d been fitted for two months ago when Yuki had originally invited me.
She cackled, and we high-fived. And not for the first time, I thanked my mom for giving me such a good friend—such good friends, in general. With Yuki being one of those at the very top of the list.
We’d seen each other a ton over the last four years. She’d spent Thanksgiving with us once, New Year’s twice—even though I’d warned her we just went a couple towns over to see fireworks if it wasn’t a drought year—and randomly throughout the year, she dropped by when she could. She’d rented out a yacht that second summer I’d been in Pagosa Springs, and we had met her in Greece and spent one of the best weeks ever. Even her sister, Nori, had come too.
The following year, she invited us to do the same in Italy, but . . . I hadn’t been allowed to fly at that point. I hadn’t regretted it either. Neither had Rhodes. Am had huffed and puffed, but he’d hung out with me the whole week we would have been gone, and he’d even rubbed my feet once.
He hadn’t huffed or puffed at all when I’d told him we were driving to Los Angeles for the awards ceremony though. He’d hitched a ride down with a friend from school and volunteered to come along to “help out.” Uh-huh. I missed him a ton now that he was gone at college for most of the year, and I’d take any of the excuses he made to visit.
He was still writing music and even performing from time to time at small businesses around his school. If Rhodes wasn’t busy, we drove up to watch him. He still caught me up on what he’d worked on, but school, in general, took up most of his time, even though he was planning on majoring in musical composition.
“Thank you for inviting me,” I told Yuki for about the tenth time, moving my hand along my stomach.
She tilted her head to the side. “We wrote the whole album together, Ora. And you’re the best-looking date I could have brought.”
“You did most of the work; I only helped a little,” I told her. The words, the lyrics, hadn’t come back to me over time. Once or twice, I’d felt a hint of a word or two float onto the tip of my tongue . . . but they had disappeared instantly. I didn’t think or worry about it at all though. No one cared, and that was pretty damn nice.
Then again, I had let Amos look through my notebooks a few years ago, and he’d stared over at me with wide eyes. “This is your bad stuff?” he’d demanded like he couldn’t believe me. So maybe they weren’t that bad. The only notebooks I still opened on my own from time to time were my mom’s, so we could squeeze in one of her favorite hikes. We did that pretty often on the days my heart hurt and I missed her the most.
Yuki, though, gave me a look that reminded me of how many times I’d found her passed out on the couch that Rhodes had eventually put in the garage apartment for guests. Of which she was one of them. My family in Florida, her sister, and his brothers being our other main visitors.