Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 66259 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66259 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
It’s truly all I can give to both her and the cursed universe.
“Rough?” she repeats, her eyes venomous. “Rough?” Her hands turn into tiny fists ready to pummel me. “Did you know that they tried to bring in shrimp? SHRIMP!” She clearly needed to yell it twice. “Someone’s obviously trying to murder me.”
Yes obviously. For what reasons? Oh, weird, no clue. Stares hard at exhibit A.
“And then!” she continues, “Rob just leaves for a few hours to go play poker and comes back smelling like skank? I swear if you slept with him, I’ll—” She heaves and stomps on the ground getting tiny dust particles on her cute jumpsuit. which I find oddly satisfying. “Kill you! He’s mine. He’s always been mine. He’s from money. He knows what he wants, and you were just this little attraction he couldn’t get rid of. You’ve always been like that with every boyfriend. Oh Scarlett, she’s so fun, she’s so chill, and then boom, they meet me and realize what’s real.”
Tears start streaming down my face. Is she wrong? No. I was the fun one, she was the hot one. I was the one with the personality. She was the one with perfect skin and nails and clothes. Which begs the question: why copy me?
“Anyway.” She sniffs. “I guess it doesn’t matter. I’m the new family favorite. Gertrude adores me. We’re going to Maui next May.”
I sigh. “Good for you.”
“And,” Addison adds as she puts her hands on her hips like she needs to look more in control or demanding, “I have the perfect man. So who officially wins after all this torment? Me. I win.”
I would literally win if I had a shower and another glass of wine. “Addison, what did this? What separated us? I truly want to know. Back in high school we were still close and then—”
“He used me,” Addison whispers, “to get to you. He said if he could get close to me, he’d get close to you.”
“Jason?” I ask, showing my disbelief. “Because he literally only comes out of his parents’ basement for cold pizza, then goes back to the sad dark little basement and plays Xbox with ten-year-olds.”
“I liked him, and you don’t deserve her money!”
“Okay?”
“Don’t you get it, you take everything from me!” She stomps her foot in the way you’d normally see in movies, but right now all I see is dust swirling around me and then a hard push into something cold, ominous.
Oh yay, I’m going to drown.
I swim up to the surface, realizing that my own sibling just tried to murder me, and attempt to get to the side only to hear a splash to my left, and feel warm arms surround me. “Don’t die, you annoying little minnow.”
“Worst romantic phrase ever.” I choke out so much water that my throat burns. “But thanks for bringing me to shore, Aquaman.”
Killian laughs and pulls us onto the cold, hard, dirt-filled ground. “Well, I do try.”
I let out rough exhale. “Is she after love or money or just hatred for me?”
“Maybe all of the above?” he offers. “I learned a long time ago not to actually try to figure people out, because for the most part you’ll deal with a painfully wrong scenario. You just accept things at face value, value them the way they value you, build them up, and hope that they’ll be the vision of the person you saw in the first place.”
I can’t help it, a tear runs down my cheek, hot, aching, needy for someone to say it’s okay. “Why do you have to be so romantic when I want to punch you?”
Strong arms pull me tighter, until I’m pressed against his body. “Maybe because you’re growing on me, and I kind of want to water the plant more, see how it sprouts, cut off a bit of flower, use my fingers to—”
“You always have to make it dirty.”
“I was literally going to say move around the soil so more could sprout up and here you are reprimanding me. Man, I can’t even win with you so—”
“I like you,” I blurt. “I mean I’m just sitting here on the side of the pond with my thoughts and emotional demons and all.”
“I think I have a song that starts like that,” he muses.
“Bet it’s awesome.”
“Double platinum, thanks for the validation.” He laughs before grabbing my hand. “Holy shit are you okay?”
It’s almost like his words registered the pain in my palms as I sit up. I have several goat head prickers stuck in my skin, feeling like the fires of hell, not a big deal, no infection but still not fun and getting less fun by the minute.
“Hold on.” He jumps to his feet and gently grabs my elbows and pulls me up. Immediately, he starts pulling out the goat heads and tossing them to the side.