Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 70570 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70570 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“You don’t know the first thing about him.”
“I know you and I already made it to second base, yet there you go running off to Mr. Perfection like I’m just old meat.”
I sigh, return to the fridge, and get another bottle.
“Really?” he says as I finally pour the bottles into two glasses. “You’re still going back outside? C’mon, I’m throwin’ you a lifeline here. I bet that guy’s a douche in sheep’s clothing, I’m tellin’ you. Save yourself the trouble. Make up a lame excuse, ditch him and this party, and hit the town with me. I can be your out, just like I promised I would. Don’t go back to that lame-o out there.”
I study Samuel’s face long and hard. He stares back, haughty and smirking. “Well, good thing we’re having this out now,” I say.
“What do you mean?”
I take the two glasses of water off the counter. “I’m seeing another side of Samuel Buckley.” My expression darkens. “And I don’t like what I see.”
His eyes turn glassy and faraway.
He was about to go for another sip of the water bottle he stole, but my words break his resolve.
There’s no sassy reply to that one.
I leave him in the kitchen just like that and head back out to the side patio. The door shuts at my back. I wander across the wide patio and down the steps to find Cole sitting in a chair by the pool. He spots me, smiles, and waves.
When I return Cole’s smile, I feel the weight of the words I just said to Samuel on my way out of the kitchen.
Did I have a right to say that?
Have I been leading him on all day unknowingly?
Does he have every right to feel jealous and annoyed at the sudden appearance of Mr. Perfection Cole Harding?
Were my words unfair?
“Took you a bit,” says Cole. “I figured Mrs. Strong caught you and got lost interrogating you about how it’s going with me.”
Well, he’s not totally off about the interrogation part—only who it was with. I smile back and extend one of the glasses toward him. “Here you go.”
When he takes the glass from me, his fingers graze mine.
Our eyes meet at once.
“Thanks,” he says sweetly, flashing another smile.
He smiles a lot.
The effect that smile has on me doesn’t seem to diminish.
I find that alarming.
“You’re welcome,” I say, then settle into my chair and blankly stare at the pool, breathing funny. I seem to have forgotten my thirst, because the glass of water in my hand is the last thing I’m thinking about.
“So how is it going with me?” he asks, sounding hopeful. “I’m afraid I might be … coming off kind of stiff or boring.”
“What? No,” I quickly insist. “Not at all.”
“Really?”
“Yep, really. It’s refreshing to get to know a new face. I don’t meet many new faces in Fairview.”
“Me neither, out here in Spruce.”
“It’s another thing we have in common!” I point out with a lift of my glass.
He takes that as a toast. “To another thing in common!”
I didn’t intend it as a toast, but I play along as if I did, clinking my glass against his. Then we both drink.
As I sip with a cheery Cole at my side, I peer over the rim of my glass back at the house, where the sun has gone down enough to clearly reveal the contents of the kitchen through the windows.
No one’s there anymore.
Chapter 8
Am I The Rabbit?
I stand at the door to the guest room. “Uh, what do you mean we’re not going home?” I hiss, in shock.
My father, as calm and cool as ever, continues to type on his laptop at the desk by the window. Nothing can touch his happy little mood. “Malcolm,” he sings. “I’m doing woo-oork.”
I come right up to the side of the desk. “You said we would be heading out after the cleanup. We cleaned up. Now it’s time to—”
“Wasn’t Nadine so kind as to offer us to stay here? She knows we will have many late nights this week, and it is ever-so tiresome to travel back and forth from Fairview. Really, so thoughtful.”
Thoughtful, he calls this. “Dad, I need a shower. I need my own bed. What am I going to wear tomorrow? Hell, tonight?”
“A bag was packed for you. Did you not see? It’s at the foot of your bed.”
“My bed? You mean the bed in the other guest room?”
“Yes, that room.”
He’s doing this deliberately. He’s doing this to me deliberately and he knows it. “You know damned well whose room that is.”
“Malc-oolm.”
“Jimmy’s,” I answer myself. “You’re making me sleep in—”
“I doubt it’s been his room for years any more than this room has been Tanner’s. Actually, while I have you here …” He whips off his glasses and faces me. “I heard you had quite the night yourself. Met a handsome fellow, I’ve been told.”