Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 116268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 116268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 581(@200wpm)___ 465(@250wpm)___ 388(@300wpm)
Swimming and running go hand-in-hand. We used to condition on land by doing endurance runs together, and I’d love to make time for an ultra.
If she asked me a year ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated like I do now.
“It’s because my dad ran an ultra, isn’t it?”
“Sul.” I rub my sharpened jaw. “If I go, they’ll compare me more to your dad than they do now.”
Sulli tears at the label on her beer. “Look, I know you’re not my brother—”
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Goddammit.
“Oh hey, I know. I’m fucking terrible with words.” She takes a giant breath. Not giving up yet. Sulli rarely gives up on anything. “Hear me out. We started competitive swimming together, and in the grand universe of friendship and fate, maybe we should start this together too.” She pauses. “And I just can’t fucking imagine doing this alone. So think about it, will you?”
I nod. “For you, I will.”
Sulli puts her lips to the beer rim and catches me eagle-eyeing the alcohol. She lowers the bottle. “You can stop looking at me like I’ve sprouted wings.”
“Actually, I’m looking at you like you’re cradling a lit firework.”
“I know what I’m doing, Moffy,” she tries to reassure me.
Our grandfather was an alcoholic.
My dad is a recovering alcoholic.
Her dad chose to stop drinking alcohol at seventeen.
Alcoholism runs in the Hale and Meadows bloodlines. Just because I decided to never drink alcohol doesn’t mean my siblings or cousins will choose the same.
“Just be careful.” I dump pretzels in another bowl.
Sulli doesn’t say I always am. Adventure and fearlessness also runs deep in her blood. As a Meadows, she grew up cliff-jumping into tropical oceans, riding Ducatis, and paragliding hundreds of feet in the air.
Instead, she tells me, “I know the risk.”
Sulli reaches for a bakery box that contains a dozen chocolate-covered donuts. We carry the assortment of food: pretzels, chips, buffalo poppers, Halloween candy, and a veggie tray. And we skillfully climb over the loveseat without spilling anything.
Akara, Quinn, and Farrow lounge on beanbags, radios set aside. So they’re seriously off-duty. They face the fireplace, television mounted above the mantel. I set the food on a green sleeping bag in the middle, and Janie yanks the cord to the ceiling light.
Blanketing us in near-darkness.
Farrow leans on a black beanbag, nearest the staircase. More off on his own damn island. Akara, Quinn, and even Janie who plops down near the food are clustered much closer together.
Farrow swigs a beer, eyes dead-set on me. He’s wondering what my next move is. So am I. I’m dying to sit beside him. But what kind of message is that sending to everyone else?
Hey, I’m fucking my bodyguard!
Or hey, I’m just good friends with my bodyguard.
Alright—the first one sounds like pure paranoia with a dash of overreacting. Before I step towards Farrow, Sulli places donuts next to the chips and curses, “Cumbuckets.”
“What?” I ask.
“I forgot the salsa.” She rests two fingers to her lips: the famous Sullivan Meadows concentration face. And she’s using it for a salsa crisis.
“Sulli,” I snap. “It’s fine.”
“Do you have anything in your fridge? I could make some.” She can’t offer to make a grocery run since that’d entail needing a sober Akara Kitsuwon.
“Forget the salsa, Sulli.”
“Uncle Lo says that it’s not a party until there’s salsa. It’s a party rule. Right?” She looks to Jane.
“Well…” Jane muses the idea for too long.
I cut in, “My dad could also eat five hot sauce packets for brunch and nothing else.”
“Famous ones,” Farrow calls out, and our heads turn to him. “There’s no salsa rule for parties. Not normal.”
Christ, the fact that we needed clarification from Farrow makes me pinch my eyes and groan. He smiles wide into his swig of beer.
“Come here, Sul.” Akara waves her to sit on the green beanbag beside him, the bowl of chips on his lap.
Sitting, she holds her legs to her chest but leans towards him.
“These are perfectly fine without salsa.” He demonstrates and tosses a corn ship in his mouth. “Delicious.”
“You’re just saying that,” Sulli refutes.
“Am not.” Akara playfully pulls the bowl against his chest. “These are mine now, thanks.”
She smiles bright, and then tries to grab a chip. He hoists the bowl over her head. Teasing.
Teasing?
I dazedly walk over to Farrow. Not taking my gaze off that exchange, and I sink down next to him. “What’s up with that?” I whisper to him.
“It’s called a buddy-guard, wolf scout.”
I’ve heard security use the term before. Buddy-guard (noun): one who protects a very-important-person while also being their close friend.
I’ve known that Akara understands everything about Sulli, her habits, her likes and dislikes—I just never really honed in on their “friendship” until…
Until I started fucking my bodyguard.
Great. Is my perception of every bodyguard-client relationship going to skew on the side of they’re copulating now? My mind is a rabbit hole that I didn’t ask to fall into.