Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 66233 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66233 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 331(@200wpm)___ 265(@250wpm)___ 221(@300wpm)
“Okay, but walk, don’t run,” I call to her back, using my teacher voice, and she slows down to a jog, making me laugh.
“Who’s next?” I ask, and a cute blonde holds up her hand. “All right.” I weave together her crown, and when I’m done, I put it on her head, and another girl takes her place. By the time Haylee and I are finished with all of them and they’ve wandered off to join the game of tug-o-war that has started, my fingers are cramped, but I still have a pile of daisies next to me, so I decide to make a crown for myself.
“The guys are back,” Haylee says quietly as I place the flowers on my head, and I turn to watch Brice and Jace walk in our direction. “You’re right; they are idiots,” she whispers when they get close enough for us to see that Jace now has a dark line under his left eye, and Brice is sporting a cut above his upper lip.
“Told you,” I mumble, relieved that besides what I can see, neither of them seems to have suffered any major damage.
As they descend on us, the two of them share a small smile, and I almost roll my eyes, because they look like the boys in my class do when they know they’ve done something stupid but are not sorry about it.
“So are we all okay now?” Haylee asks, getting to her feet, and I hold my breath when she looks at Jace.
“We’re good,” he says softly, and she rubs her lips together before looking at her husband when he grabs her hand.
“How about we leave Dash with Grandma, and the two of us go for a ride into town to get something to eat?” Brice suggests, which I’m guessing is code for “we should talk.”
“All right, while you make sure your mom is okay with that, I’ll change,” she says quietly, then her eyes come to me, and she gives me a soft smile before she wander off.
“I’ll see you two later at Capture the Flag,” Brice says before heading to where his mom is and I look up at Jace, finding him looking at me with a curious expression.
“What?”
“You look beautiful.” He walks over and takes a seat behind me, and my insides flutter. “How pissed are you?” He bends his knees at my sides and rests his wrists on top of them.
“Not even a little pissed.” I turn to look at him over my shoulder, then reach out without thinking and touch my fingers to the bruise under his eye. “Do you both feel better now that you’ve beaten each other up?” I ask, and he chuckles, grabbing my hand to kiss my fingers.
“We talked after.”
“Did you use actual words, or did you just drink beer and call it good?”
“There was a lot of grunting, but we got a few words out.”
“Good,” I say quietly, and he pulls me back against his chest and wraps his arm around me.
“Sorry our day didn’t pan out.”
“That’s all right. I’m glad that you got to figure things out with your brother.”
“Me too.” I feel his lips near my ear. “So tell me about the flowers.”
“Oh.” I touch my head. “Haylee and I were making daisy crowns for all the girls, and I had some flowers left over.” I start to take it off, but he grabs my wrist.
“It’s cute. Leave it.”
“Okay.” I let my hands fall to my lap and look over at his aunt when she calls our names, and I notice she has her phone pointed in our direction.
“Got it.” She smiles, looking down at her screen.
“Did she just take our picture?”
“Yep,” he says easily, then asks, “Did you talk to your mom today?”
“We texted a little earlier. She and my aunt were going to Ellis Island with my grandma.”
“Is she still worried?”
“No, not really.”
Actually, I’m a little surprised by my mom’s total okayness with everything. I mean, the day I called her back after she FaceTimed me, she had a lot of questions about what I was doing. Why didn’t I tell her I was getting a job? Who is Jace? But by the time we got off the phone, she was all right and has been since then, which is a surprise. Then again, I didn’t tell her that I was pretending to be my boss’s fiancée while at his family reunion.
“Have you been to New York?” he asks, dragging me from my thoughts, and I peek back at him before focusing out on the water.
“That’s where my parents grew up. When I was two, my dad got a job working on the Golden Gate Bridge, so he moved us to California. Mom thought about moving back after he passed away, but she didn’t want to uproot me from everything I knew, when I was already dealing with a huge change.” I let out a breath, then say softly, “Really, I don’t think she wanted to leave the house she and Dad bought together.”