Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 155405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 777(@200wpm)___ 622(@250wpm)___ 518(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155405 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 777(@200wpm)___ 622(@250wpm)___ 518(@300wpm)
“Ew, I’m not wearing some girl’s panties, Landon.”
He smirks. “They’re yours.”
“What?” I scowl at him.
He steals my panties all the time and puts them in his pocket, but I always end up getting them back. And these aren’t even panties, they’re… bikini bottoms.
Recognition hits me, and my jaw drops open when I realize why they’re familiar. “These are the bikini bottoms I was wearing at that party sophomore year.”
He nods, reaching into a drawer to get himself some pants.
“You kept them?”
“Obviously.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?” he asks, stepping into a pair of fitted sweats.
I stare at the bikini bottoms I lost years ago. To be honest, I was in such a rush to get away from him that night, I didn’t even think about what happened to them. “It’s not exactly a great memory,” I point out, feeling a touch awkward to have to bring it up.
He shrugs. “Good memories, bad memories. They’re all memories of us, so I’ll take ’em.”
I crack a smile as I step into them. “That’s kind of sweet.”
Before I can say anything else, there’s a less patient knock at the door.
Spurred to action, I quickly pull up the sweats I stole from Landon and steal a glance in the mirror.
That was a mistake.
My hair is a frizzy mess of bedhead and my skin is flushed from sleeping in the arms of the sexy space heater standing behind me. I look bedraggled and ridiculous in his clothes, but Landon catches sight of my reflection and smiles, wrapping his arms around my waist and gazing at our reflection like I’m the prettiest girl in the world.
“I can see why you’re so obsessed with me. Look at me rocking these sweats,” I joke.
“Right?” he says, kissing my neck. “Eleven out of ten, easy.”
He makes me blush and smile like an idiot. “You’re a ridiculous liar.”
His eyebrows rise. “You better watch how you talk about my girl. I’ll beat your pretty little ass.”
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.”
Landon smirks and gives me a smack on the ass, but since his father is still waiting in the hall, he also finally lets me out of the closet.
Hayden is waiting on the other side of the door, looking excessively unimpressed. The look intensifies when he looks at me in Landon’s clothes, with my hair looking like I’ve just been ravished.
“This isn’t what it looks like,” I assure him. “We fell asleep, but we weren’t doing anything. I mean, just now. Up here! In his bed at all. I mean…” I grimace. “I’ll just stop talking.”
“That would probably be for the best,” Hayden says wryly. “Your mother is waiting downstairs. We brought home dessert from the restaurant.”
“Ooh, yummy.” I shoot him a teasing look. “How was your date?”
“We had a very nice time,” he assures me.
“Think you’ll see her again?”
He cracks a smile. “I have a hunch.”
“Better not have gotten handsy with her,” Landon says, surprising me by joining in. “We practice discretion in this house, young man.”
Hayden shoots his son an unamused look, but I laugh, feeling good about an actual, playful interaction between them.
It may not seem like much between most fathers and sons, but considering their relationship up to this point, I’d say it’s a very good start.
Chapter Forty-Nine
Landon
About five weeks later, Halloween weekend
“Hey, have you seen Parker around here anywhere?”
I don’t ask Hannah why she’s dressed up the way she is when I catch her coming out of the bathroom. To be honest, I might not notice except for the fact that she has a dab of black makeup on her nose as well as black lipstick, and that is not her usual look.
Hannah opens her mouth to answer, but before she can, Parker comes charging out of the girl’s bathroom in an identical costume and my jaw fucking drops.
Parker looks immediately guilty, and now I see why she snuck out of the fucking house without me this morning when we usually ride to school together.
Like Hannah, Parker is wearing a fuck ton of face makeup with some dabbed on her nose and black lipstick. Her long red hair is tied up in buns on each side of her head, and she’s wearing a skintight black miniskirt with a cropped black and white fuzzy panda sweater that bares a swatch of her midriff.
What the fuck.
“Nope,” I say immediately.
“Before you say no,” Parker attempts, but I cut her off.
“Too late. I already said it.”
“It’s for the pandas,” she states, shooting me a disgruntled look. “Official Uplift business. The kid we put in charge of the ‘save the pandas’ fundraiser completely dropped the ball. He had weeks to fundraise, but he didn’t, and the deadline is today. We have to raise $5,000 today in order to reach our goal, so we’re dressing like this to draw extra attention to our cause.”