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)
The nervous energy helps keep me awake, but makes it harder to focus on classes today. My focus is especially shaken when the first class I’m supposed to have with Landon starts and he still isn’t here.
I check my phone again but there’s still nothing, so I shoot my mom an innocuous text about my club meeting after school and wait to see what she says.
Of course, she chooses today to be busy.
I don’t get to check her return text until after class, but her response is just, “got it. Have fun!”
“Ugh,” I mutter, looking down at my phone on the way to lunch.
Hannah catches up to me for the first time since she walked me through cleaning my stupid sheets this morning. “Hey.”
“Hey,” I murmur, slipping my phone back into my purse. I try to ignore her paying extra close attention to me, but it’s like walking outside and trying to ignore the sun. “I’m fine,” I say shortly. “I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t even know what ‘it’ is.”
“Okay,” she says easily. “If you change your mind, you know where to find me.” Without dwelling on it, she looks ahead down the hall. “Are we eating in the cafeteria?"
I nod. Then, despite saying I didn’t want to talk about it, I add, “I don’t think he’s at school today. He wasn’t in class.”
She shakes her head. “He wasn’t in the class we usually have together, either.”
Sighing, I try my best not to care, and hate when the very first thought to spring to mind is… “Do you have any classes with Brittany?”
I told Landon the one sure way to blow things up like they’ve never been blown up before, and he loves to detonate things.
While I did it to protect us if there was ever going to be an us, to protect him because I know deep down, I’m the one keeping his life together, I knew the risks of handing the nuke codes over to someone as volatile as Landon.
But I meant what I said, and I hope he knows that. I wasn’t running my mouth to cast a certain inflated impression of my badassery; I was delivering information that is crucial to our survival.
If he does the one thing I warned him about the very next day, the gloves are coming off. One-way alliance over. I won’t protect him anymore, and he won’t make it another week without me.
But maybe that’s okay. Fuck him. If he’s intent on living in chaos, he can live in it alone and leave us to our peace.
“Yes, she was in class.”
I sag with relief, a thousand pounds falling off my shoulders.
I was talking a big game and I meant every word, but I did not want to have to follow through.
Why can’t he just let me be nice to him?
“It is so like him to do this,” I say with much less defensiveness now that the worst of my fears has been dissolved. “I fell asleep with him in my arms, and I haven’t seen or heard from him since.”
Hannah grimaces. “That sucks. I’m sorry.”
“It sure does,” I mutter.
Chapter Thirty
Parker
At the end of a long, stressful school day, I have even more school.
Normally, I’d be eager to head off to the Uplift club meeting, but today, it’s the last thing I want to do. I’m exhausted physically and mentally, and I do not have the patience for Anae Richards.
Sighing heavily, I gather up my books. Everyone else files past me and makes their way out of the classroom. I’m the last to leave, so I make my way to the teacher’s desk before I go.
Mr. Clark looks up at me from behind his spectacles, cocking an eyebrow in question.
“Can I get an extra paper packet to take home for Landon Atwater? He was absent today and we live together. I can give them to him tonight so he can catch up over the weekend.”
“Oh. Yes, here you go,” he says, grabbing a stapled pack of papers off his desk and passing them to me.
“Thank you,” I murmur before turning to walk out.
When I step through the doorway and into the hall, I’m caught off guard by someone pushing off the wall and sauntering toward me. My eyes widen and my cheeks warm as my gaze rakes over him quickly. He’s wearing a black T-shirt that hugs his athletic frame and a pair of dark wash jeans.
“Landon,” I say, not bothering to hide the surprise in my voice.
I don’t miss the way his gaze briefly rakes over me, either. I’m wearing an emerald green button-down top and a black skirt that felt an appropriate length all day, but now that he’s looking at me, I feel like it provides minimal coverage.
Maybe it’s the memory of him in my bed last night that makes me feel so exposed.