Series: Webs We Weave Series by Krista Ritchie
Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 126927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126927 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 635(@200wpm)___ 508(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
I lift my gaze. “Thanks for the tour. It’s a really nice place.”
“Yeah, it’s not too bad.” His voice sounds stilted. He’s coming from a bedroom, and to reach the living room and kitchen, he needs to pass me in this narrow hallway. When Jake begins sliding past, I stop slouching to let him by, but his knees still brush against my body.
Heat flushes my neck.
And then when we’re in line with one another, his gaze plummets to my boobs. His face twitches, maybe knowing that was uncouth or whatever, and before he apologizes, I blurt out, “I’m really sorry about . . . um, almost flashing you earlier. My bad.”
My bad?
Ugh, I want to crawl in a hole.
His lips rise in a soft smile. “It was . . .” He tilts his head and finds a word. “Unexpected.”
I’m still cringing at myself. “I must be your first—first girl who tried to flash you, I mean.” What the fuck is wrong with me today?
His smile widens into a laugh. “You’re definitely not the first, Phoebe Smith.” My fake surname. It blows past me while amusement glitters his blue eyes.
What is he—the playboy of Victoria? Every girl wants to go wild and topless in front of him? Still, the way he says it, it doesn’t sound exactly like boasting. Just something commonplace to him. He’s so used to seeing tits or having girls bend over backward for him?
I don’t know.
Maybe he’s just trying to make me feel better.
“I’m not the first?” I process out loud. He’s loitering in the cramped hallway with me, and his height is more apparent as I crane my neck. It’s hard not to place his beauty in a high percentile, and instead of seducing him for a job, I’m supposed to just . . . be myself?
“Not the first.” He nods.
“I prefer being seventh in life, anyway.” I shrug. “Bottom tier. Solid placement. Unassuming.” I smile at him, but I feel the uncertainty in it.
Maybe my real self is a bumbling fool. That’s . . . scary. I already want to exchange her for the confident, cool version.
“Unassuming is a good place to be here,” Jake says softly. “You don’t want to stand out or race to the top.”
If he’s advising that I stay away from the upper echelons of Victoria’s social structure, then I must appear like easy prey already. Freeing my nipples isn’t exactly a first-class ticket into charity galas and country clubs. But I’m done trying to appear like the social elite.
We’re middle-class bitches. And I’m hoping my mom and Hailey’s mom have been wrong. I hope we’re both going to like it here.
“So lock the front door,” I note his warnings. “Re-dye my hair. Take out any piercings, and don’t try to mingle with the top dogs. Is that all?”
“Barely. I could write a four-hundred-page textbook on What Not to Do in Victoria.”
“And I’d let Hailey read it.”
His attention veers to my best friend, who’s still talking with her brother in the living room.
“She’d probably even devour your rule book in a couple minutes,” I tell him. “But I appreciate the warnings, even if we might not take all of them.”
His smile is gone. “I hope you’re serious about loving seventh place.”
I frown. “Why?”
He straightens off the wall, his entire body brushing my body now, and I don’t shrink back as he says, “Because in this town, everyone else is busy chasing after first. And no offense, you’re not equipped to be there.”
Okay, Judgy McJudgy. He can act like he has me figured out, but he has no idea. If only he knew . . .
Before he begins to pass by, I ask, “You don’t want first place?”
His eyes grip mine in a hotter beat. “I didn’t say that.”
I hold my breath like if my lungs expand, he won’t be able to slide past me. A silly thought. He easily walks beyond the hallway and enters the kitchen.
I’m following behind him, aware that he’s the typical man that my mom chooses to date. Clean-cut, good-looking, wealthy. At least, I’m assuming he’s rich from his bravado and if he owns this loft himself. Then again, maybe it belongs to his parents?
He must be twenty-seven, twenty-eight?
Too young for my mom. She usually dates men twice her age.
She’d love him for me, though.
He’s a good one, bug.
It irks me, and I wonder if there are any guys in this town she’d disapprove of. My eyes flit to Rocky, and my stomach overturns. His approval rating is astronomical with my mother. He’s polling a grand one hundred percent.
Jake wouldn’t be that high. But it’d be close.
I turn back to my landlord.
He has a nice butt. Perky in his slacks. I watch him flip open a binder on the butcher board counter.
Rocky clears his throat behind me. I look over my shoulder, and his brows rise. Okaaay, he caught me checking out my landlord’s ass. It’s not a crime.