Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186555 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 933(@200wpm)___ 746(@250wpm)___ 622(@300wpm)
I headed back into the house before he got anything else out, holding onto my triumphs for the day. That was what I wanted to linger over. Not over his wishy-washy moods.
I’d picked up a fucking eagle and set up my own bat house all by myself. I’d learned how to use a drill. It was a win across the board. And that was something. Something big and beautiful.
Next thing I knew, I was going to be catching bats barehanded. Okay, that was never actually going to happen, but right then, I felt like I could do anything.
Except get my neighbor to like me, but that was okay.
It really was.
Chapter 14
I woke up to knocking.
Loud, frantic knocking.
“Ora!” an extremely familiar voice called out.
I blinked and sat up. “Amos?” I yelled back, picking up my phone from where I’d left it lying on the floor, plugged in. The screen said it was seven in the morning.
On my day off. Sunday.
What the hell was Am doing awake this early too? He’d literally told me at least three times that he usually stayed up all night playing video games and wouldn’t wake up until after one unless his dad was home. It had made me laugh.
Throwing my legs over the side, I called out again, “Amos? You okay?”
He replied then as I grabbed a hoodie from where I’d left it draped over one of the table’s chairs and slipped it on. Despite how warm it got during the day, some nights still got cool. “Oraaaa! Yes! Come here!”
What the hell was going on? I yawned and pulled on the sleep shorts I’d peeled off last night too, sliding them up my legs at the top of the stairs before I ran down as fast as possible. Amos wasn’t a dramatic kid. We’d spent so much time together over the last month, I would have picked up on it. If anything, he was sensitive and shy, even though he was coming out of his bubble around me more and more every day.
At least one of the Rhodes men was.
Unlocking then pulling open the door, I was already squinting at him.
Still in his pajamas—a wrinkled T-shirt from the town’s high school and basketball shorts I’d bet he’d inherited from Mr. Rhodes—he stared back at me. There was a drool stain on his cheek, and even his eyelashes looked a little crusty…. But the rest of him was wide awake. Alarmed even.
Why did he look freaked out?
“What happened?” I asked, trying not to worry.
He grabbed my hand, which should have been a sign because he tolerated me on the rare occasions I hugged him but had never initiated one himself, and started pulling me forward, out the door.
“Hold on,” I said, stopping to slip on my boots halfway and shuffling after him. “What’s going on?”
The kid didn’t even glance at me as he kept on leading me toward his house. “Your… your friend is at my house,” he basically gasped.
“My friend?” What friend? Clara?
That was when he glanced over, his expression damn near distraught. “Yeah, your friend.” His throat bobbed. “You said some things, but I didn’t really believe you.”
“That’s rude,” I yawned, not knowing what the hell he was talking about but going along with it.
Amos ignored me. “But she’s inside. She was banging on the door and calling your name—and she doesn’t have her wig on, but it’s her.”
Wig?
I clomped up the stairs behind him, way too tired to really use my brain yet. One of my boots fell off, and I had to tap his hand to get him to stop so I could put it back on.
“She said she’s making us all breakfast, so I ran over here to get you,” he kept on rambling a mile a minute, talking faster than ever. More than ever too. He pushed the door open and kept on tugging me after him. “Can I tell Jackie? Dad said she could come over for two hours, remember? She’s gonna cry.”
“I stayed up last night finishing a book, Am. Who is over here? Clara? Why would Jackie cry?”
He led me straight into the living room before suddenly stopping.
“It’s her,” he whispered, not sounding very reverent but more like… surprised out of his mind.
I narrowed my eyes toward the kitchen with yet another yawn and spotted the jet-black hair and slim body standing in front of the stove, stirring something in a glass bowl.
I couldn’t clearly see the woman’s features, but all it took was an “Ora!” for me to know who she was.
An eight-time Grammy winner.
One of my best friends in the whole world.
One of my favorite people in the whole world.
And one of the absolute last people I would’ve ever imagined seeing in Mr. Rhodes’s house.
“Yuki?” I asked anyway.
I was pretty sure she set down the bowl before rushing over and throwing her arms around me, hugging the shit out of me so hard I couldn’t breathe. Still in shock, I hugged her back just as tight.