Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 137433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 550(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 137433 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 687(@200wpm)___ 550(@250wpm)___ 458(@300wpm)
“Can we stop with the shit metaphors?” I grumble.
He slaps a brown paper bag with a bagel inside it against my chest and hands me a coffee.
“We can, but I’m not done just yet with busting your balls.”
We both start making our way to our gate. I bump my shoulder into his. “Still feeding yourself the lie that this thing with the Miami Grand Prix race driver is casual?”
This is why he’s headed to Florida right now instead of spending his vacation days with his family in Todos Santos. At least I’m going to see the love of my life.
He met this dude literally five seconds ago and is already trying to find a way to transfer to Miami for him.
“It’s casual,” he maintains. “And for the millionth time, it’s not the Miami Grand Prix. It’s the Key Biscayne Motorpark. More prestigious than F1.”
“All I heard was he has a jet lane in his backyard.” I smirk.
The flight to Fort Lauderdale is painfully slow. I spend the entire duration texting Dove.
Lev: What are you wearing?
Bailey: A pair of black Lululemon leggings, your Moschino sweatshirt, and fluffy socks. Sienna puts the air-con on 70! So not environmental, and I’m always freezing.
Lev: Okay. I’ll rephrase: what are you wearing for the sake of my warped fantasies?
Bailey: Nothing but a pair of Jimmy Choos and an edible thong.
Bailey: Bacon flavored, of course.
Lev: I LOVE YOU SO FUCKING MUCH I AM GOING TO MARRY THE SHIT OUT OF YOU.
Bailey: I love you so much I am going to have your babies. Like, literally five hundred of them. My stomach is going to look like cookie dough by the time I’m done.
Lev: I love cookie dough. How do you always get even more perfect?
Bailey: What are YOU wearing?
Lev: My heart on my fucking sleeve, ofc. You rob me of my cool.
Bailey: How long until you land?
Lev: Forty minutes, baby.
Bailey: K. Gonna go see if I can find an edible bacon-flavored thong by then.
The sun is almost up by the time we land.
Bailey waits for me at the airport, wearing a checkered pleated skirt, sneaks, and a white cable-knit Polo sweater. Her yellow hair is wrapped in a big, black satin bow, and she looks every inch of the girl I used to secretly glance at during dinners and high school functions and pinch myself that I was allowed to talk to her freely.
She hops on me, wrapping her legs around my waist as my fingers sink into the back of her thighs and I devour her mouth in a starving, wet, and sloppy kiss.
“There better be an edible bacon-flavored thong under these clothes, Dove,” I growl into her mouth.
She giggles into mine. “Only one way to find out.”
“Get a room,” Grim moans behind me. “Actually, make it an entire bunker.”
Bailey is still wrapped around me, kissing my face, oblivious to the looks we’re getting as I give Grim my back and a middle finger and walk off toward where she parked her car. “See you in two weeks, fuck-face.”
“Not if I can help it,” Grim mumbles.
As soon as we get to Bailey’s apartment, Sienna makes an executive decision not to be a total waste of oxygen and announces, “I’m going soap shopping! Be back later.”
Yup. Soap shopping. As I said—blandest of the bland.
Not that I’m complaining. It gives Bailey and me the opportunity to rip each other’s clothes off right there in her living room.
We have sex twice in a row before she offers me something to drink and three more times before we reluctantly DoorDash the first thing that pops on our phone screen.
Cuban—thank God. A salad would have sucked. Then, finally, eight times later, when it’s evening and Sienna is back with a bag of dessert-scented soaps and a lot of uninteresting anecdotal information about how her day has been, Bailey and I cuddle in her bed and talk.
During the weekdays, all we do is talk. But it still feels different with her warm body draped over mine.
“How’s school, Dove?” I stroke her daffodil hair, breathing in her warmth.
“I love it.” She runs her nails over my chest, giving me shivers. “Yours?”
“Hate it. But they say the years get progressively less awful as you go along.”
Bailey and I are going to do this long-distance thing for a long time. Until she graduates, at least. It will be hard, but it will be worth it. Our forever was hard-earned.
Failure is not an option. Which is why I have to do to her what I’m about to do to her.
“Hey, Dove?”
“Hmm?”
“How would you feel about taking a trip to California before we go to Jackson Hole?”
“I would feel…” Her eyebrows are drawn into a confused frown. “Slightly jet-lagged, I guess. Why?”
I pull the two tickets I bought for us from my bag under her bed.
Her eyes widen. “Lev, it says our flight leaves in four hours. From Miami.”