Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 107687 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107687 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 538(@200wpm)___ 431(@250wpm)___ 359(@300wpm)
Flynn makes a face. “I don’t know. Sometimes sex can be romanticized when it shouldn’t be.”
I look over at him with pride. “I raised you so well.”
He snorts. “Um, I’m not like that. If I’m hooking up, I know what it is going into it.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, one-night stands, shit, that’s all it is. But a couple dates in and we want to keep going, I romanticize it. Everyone wants to be loved, asshole,” he says, smacking me, and I laugh.
“Jeez, maybe I didn’t raise you right.”
“You did. And I know good and well that when you find someone you can’t stop thinking about or wanting to be with, you’ll start romanticizing whatever happens between you two.”
“Got to find her first,” I say. Though, he’s looking at me in a certain way. “What?”
“Have you told Austen you think she’s pretty?”
I roll my eyes. “No, ’cause I’m not a fucking choirboy. If anything, I’ll tell her she’s fucking hot and I want her to smother me with her thighs.”
Flynn nods, unaffected by my explicitness. “I feel like she would blush so many colors.”
“Oh, all the fucking colors,” I rasp, adjusting myself and thinking it might be a good idea to tell her. Just to see the colors come. “And that would be highly enjoyable.”
“Because you like her.” He calls me out, and I shrug.
“Do I like, like her? Maybe. The easier question is, would I devour her in a second? And that’s a fuck yes.”
Flynn finds that funny just as a voice joins our conversation. In Russian, Katarina says, “And once she realizes you’re a jackass, she’ll dump your ass.”
Flynn looks from my sister to me, confused. I wave him off. “She’s being a brat, as always.”
Katarina crosses her arms, fully pissed off at being here. “I want to go home,” she says, and I shake my head.
“Hey, Katarina. How are you?”
She just looks at our first cousin like he is a damn stranger.
“Are you serious? We share a birthday.”
She shrugs. “I don’t want roots here.”
“It’s not roots when it’s your family, dumbass.”
She ignores me, looking bored as she glances around.
“Instead of being a brat, why don’t you try to enjoy yourself?”
She rolls her eyes. “I don’t want to. I miss my friends. I miss Viktar.”
Viktar being the mob boss’s son who tried to kidnap her. She’s fucking crazy. “Have you spoken to him?”
“No, he won’t answer anything from me.”
“Because he’s probably fucking someone else. Move on, Kat.”
“I don’t want to, and I don’t want to be here. Why do you even like it here?” she asks, holding my gaze. “We left this life behind, these people. We were better at home.”
“This is our home. Stop fighting it, and just go with it. You’re safer here,” I urge, but she doesn’t agree.
“I really hate Russian,” Flynn mutters, and I tap my beer to his.
“Please, Kat. Try to be happy,” I plead, and I don’t even think she hears me. She walks away, her dress swaying behind her as she walks. I shake my head as I glance at Flynn. “She’s not happy here.”
Flynn rolls his eyes. “It’s been like a month, if that. She’ll adjust. It’s better here for her. But the whole only speaking in Russian thing is fucking annoying.”
“Absolutely,” I agree as I lean on the bar.
A comfortable silence falls between us as we people-watch. Everyone is so happy, so excited for the upcoming nuptials. I don’t know how Kat isn’t happy. These last few weeks have been awesome. I feel so complete here. I’m playing my sport; I’m supported by my family and friends. I’m forming bonds, and I have a super-hot roommate who keeps things interesting on a daily basis.
Flynn breaks the silence. “Are you going to talk to Shelli?”
I shrug, biting the inside of my lip, and I don’t answer right away. I think his question over. I could do what Posey said, just prove her wrong. Or I could face it head on. “I don’t know. I feel like I need to, because I do care for her and I don’t want her to hate me, but if she’s still this mad over it ten years later, what am I going to say to change it?”
Flynn thinks that over for a moment. “Maybe an apology would help, though?”
“Maybe,” I agree as my gaze falls on her. She really is a gorgeous girl. Thick, big auburn curls along her back and glossed lips that I know Aiden can’t take his eyes off. She got the one she wanted, her soul mate. I shouldn’t even matter. “Would she accept it, though?”
“Don’t know if you don’t try,” he says as he looks where I do. “I just hate the thought that the people we grew up with don’t like us anymore. I mean, I know we all grow, but we’re all still together all the time.”