Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 98992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98992 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 495(@200wpm)___ 396(@250wpm)___ 330(@300wpm)
Wasn’t a traditional family life but still more than what she has in general.
“We fucking lost,” Nathan gripes pulling out a cigarette from his pocket. “All that hard work.”
Hard work?
Not quite.
Hell, just calling it work was a stretch.
“You can’t smoke that out here,” Carmen quickly snips. “It’s a crime, fuckface. We’re on school property.”
“So,” he bites back, getting in her face, “it ain’t like it’s my school.”
“Doesn’t. Matter.”
“You work for the red and blues now, cupcake?” Nathan makes the mistakes of leaning into the strike zone. “You gonna fuckin’ write me ticket?”
“I’ll happily beat you like you stole something,” Carmen announces at the same time she pulls her hand back to slap, something I’ve seen her do to more people than she should be able to get away with.
Catching her hand in motion is swiftly followed by me suggesting, “Why don’t you just wait to light it? We’re about to leave anyway. Smoke it in the car.”
“Fine,” Nathan grunts in annoyance, sliding the cigarette behind his ear. “Wouldn’t want my smoke wasted on this white privileged piece of shit place anyway.”
How does he forget that he’s white?
Blaze winds an arm around my lower back causing me to shift my stare to his grinning face. “What’s with the smile, B? You lost…”
“To a fucking magician,” Carmen reminds on a devilish grin.
“He cheated,” Eli tries to interject.
“How?” my best friend mocks. “He didn’t make your talent disappear. You would’ve had to have some for that to be the case.”
Blaze manages to step in before more verbal shots get fired, “Yeah, we lost, but I got to fuckin’ perform, ma, and I love that feeling.”
And he really does.
It’s one of those he gushes about when it’s just the two of us hanging out, watching music videos.
“Plus, I got to do that shit with my fuckin’ boys, in front of the whole fuckin’ campus.”
No exaggeration there.
Our annual talent show is basically our own private school version of the Grammys.
There are always performances, drama, and an afterparty people will be talking about for months to come.
“And best of all-”
“Oh, no, there’s more?” Carmen mumbles just loud enough for me to hear.
“-I had the girl of my dreams in the audience cheering me on.”
The gentle smile on his face instantly raises the guilt filling my stomach.
Ugh.
He’s so not my dream anything.
He’s not even my dream distraction for the whole world to watch while Ry and I continue to hook up where they can’t see.
Dating Blaze causes more cheating rumors to fly at rapid rates than were ever even thought of while Ry and I were openly together. It feels like every other day I walk out of a class only to be hit with the latest gossip making the rounds. Somedays it’s that he’s fucking someone who isn’t me. Other days it’s him talking shit about me being a virgin. And on random occasions – very random – it’s about us running away to L.A. together to launch his music career.
Yeah.
I’d rather go to Canada and figure out how to become a fucking Canadian Mountie than follow him to California.
The worst part about hearing the rumors is I don’t actual care if they’re true or not because he’s just a fill in. A fill in I occasionally have to kiss and touch and tolerate in between the times I can get back to the real thing aka my ex-boyfriend who is in secret still my boyfriend. And I know I should feel ashamed for using him this way. And honestly, a tiny part of me does. A tiny part of me really hates treating someone like they’re an object instead of person, like they don’t matter or have feelings, yet the other part? The part that knows after we walk across that stage, Ry and I can skip town for the summer, work at a random beach while we save money for college in the fall, and just really start our new life together, is much bigger. Much louder. And something I care much more about.
I know what we’re doing is so wrong, but I’ll ask for forgiveness later.
For now?
All I’m asking is that we can continue to have what we have.
Blaze’s grin grows a bit slyer as he says, “Besides, now that I don’t have to rehearse for this shit anymore, we can hang like you want, whenever you want, ma. ”
Loathing the fact that we could even be happy for a pretend second, Nathan interrupts, “Wrong.”
Our attention immediately swings to him.
“We still have a mixtape to put out before Christmas and that shit ain’t that far away.”
“You just hate to see them fucking happy, don’t you, Saint Grinch?” Carmen points out prior to stating. “I like these rare moments when we’re on the same page.” Not giving him a chance to add anything, she turns her head towards me. “So, to Linus’s we go? I heard Tye Tessler – who is now one of the captains for Clover Rose University’s soccer team – is coming into town to be fucking there. I wanna see. And I wanna see if I can nail him before his girlfriend comes home from Paris.”