Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 143382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 717(@200wpm)___ 574(@250wpm)___ 478(@300wpm)
Home.
The text from Eric.
I programmed him into my phone, then sent, Good. Thanks for starting the dishwasher.
No problem.
This did not say, “I don’t want the day to end either, keep me engaged.”
I nibbled the side of my thumb, trying to decide if I should text something else.
He didn’t send another text while I was deciding.
Which decided for me.
It also reminded me I wasn’t that girl. I didn’t wait up to get a text when I was sleepy, and I didn’t obsess about whether a guy was into me or not.
With that reminder of who I was, I put my phone down on the charge pad, turned out the light and settled in, ignoring the fact I felt empty and very alone in that bed. Both feelings I was used to, so for the most part ignored. Neither feeling boded well, making themselves known in a manner I couldn’t ignore after spending the day with Eric Turner.
I was pulling the covers up to my shoulder when a text coming in illuminated the area of my nightstand.
It would have been embarrassing if anyone saw how fast my hand moved to grab my phone.
Sleep well, Jess.
It was from Eric.
The empty feeling evened out, the alone feeling remained, but wasn’t as sharp, and I replied, You too, Turner.
He dropped a thumbs-up on my text.
I smiled, put the phone back on the charge pad.
And slipped right to sleep.
FOUR
BURRITOS
At 10:57 the next morning, I swung my Mini into a parking spot at the back of The Surf Club.
I then grabbed the cherry Icee I’d picked up at QuikTrip, scrunched up the wrapper of the corndog I’d consumed as a late breakfast on the way to work, and got out of my car.
One could say I was in a foul mood.
I’d like to consider myself a pretty chill chick, for the most part.
Though, I was human.
I wasn’t immune to the occasional foul mood.
But this foul mood was unusual in the sense it had several levels.
The first level was that I knew what I was about to face with my friends at work. They were pissed at me (rightly…maybe), and I felt that they deserved an explanation. At the same time, I thought what was private was private, and I shouldn’t have to offer an explanation.
The second level was that I’d heard nothing from Eric all morning, and I’d lamentably had time to give no small amount of consideration to the day we’d spent together yesterday.
Something I tried not to do, but as had become my usual when it came to Eric Turner, I did.
And although it would be a weird first date…
It still felt like a first date.
Smiles. Laughter. Movies. Food. Deep sharing, which frankly, upon contemplation, I decided from what was offered up, particularly from Eric, took us significantly into seventh or eighth date territory.
And I swear, before the girls had stormed in, he was this close to kissing me.
Sure, he chucked me under the chin before he left (huh).
But seriously, his mouth was coming toward mine, and since we were already hugging, there was no reason for it to do that except to claim it.
Even so.
No text, no phone call, no nothing.
Maybe he was playing games. Maybe this was that stupid stand-off thing boys and girls did to make sure the other one didn’t think they were too into them in order to save face or gain the upper hand.
If it was, he had to be a decade older than me, so definitely past this immature bullshit, surely.
If it wasn’t, then yesterday was all about something else. Eric developing a platonic-type thing between us, which would be torture since I wanted to jump the man’s bones and maybe someday give him babies.
And, again, he was old enough to know, or at least sense, where my head was at with him, so why would he torture me like that?
The third level of my bad mood had to do with the fact that I had to figure out a way to get the girls to back off about finding Jeff, and I had no clue how to do that.
Sure.
I got it.
That was what friends were for.
Especially good friends.
And they weren’t good friends.
They were great ones.
Still.
I pushed into the back entrance of SC and was immediately confronted with Harlow, who was tying a server’s apron around her waist.
She was wearing a cute lace dress with a high halter neck and a short swing skirt that was a sure tip inducer from the straight male and lesbian crowds.
It was also just her style.
Harlow was all girl, all the time, and proud of it.
Contradictory to her normal sunshiny outlook on life in general, she was also wearing a scowl that was pointed my way.
“Harlow—” I began.
She gave me The Hand and clipped, “Later. We’re meeting at the storage units tonight at eight. You can tell me then all about how you didn’t trust me to share your brother was missing, even after all that went down with Raye and her sister.”