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)
“Hey, nice callback,” says Samuel, nodding with admiration.
“And I especially don’t play around with something as serious as love.”
“Oh, I take love very seriously, sir.”
“Yeah,” I spit out with half a roll of my eyes. “Obviously it’s a fucking treasure to you.”
“Whoa, you cussed again!”
“Forgive me if I call you on your bluff. Want to know what a real gentleman who respects love is like?” I get right up in his face. “Cole Harding. He was sweet to me today. Attentive. Wanted to get to know me. Showed me around town. Cared for my needs. Didn’t once try to get in my pants. Didn’t once try to kiss me.”
Samuel makes a fake yawn, bringing a hand to pat his mouth. “Sounds awful borin’. Can we get to the point, babe?”
I swat his hand away from his face, causing his eyes to go wide and a surprised laugh to come out, which I ignore and say, “I am not your babe,” then slip past him and march back to my room.
He follows, but stops at the doorway. “Do you really think I’m that bad a guy?”
For no reason at all, I start rummaging through the clothes in my suitcase I still haven’t unpacked. Suddenly I’m holding a pair of pink and gray argyle socks. I don’t know what I’m doing.
“No,” I answer.
“Then why’d you say all of that?”
“Because you shouldn’t throw words around like ‘love’. That word actually means something to me.”
“Me too.”
For some reason, I’m thinking about my mom again. The way she walked out on Dad. The stupid note she left me on my dresser. The sound of my father bawling his eyes out that whole morning, and how powerless I felt patting his back and staring at the wall. My proud and boastful father, reduced to a blubbering mess.
The thought must have stopped me, because Samuel’s voice comes softly now. “Is something else goin’ on here?”
I toss the socks back into my suitcase. “I just need to shower and go to bed.”
Samuel lets out a sigh that sounds like a chuckle. “I can’t tell half the time with you if we’re really in the middle of a fight, or if this is some drawn-out, long-con foreplay thing.”
“I don’t know what it is, Samuel. I just need to go to bed and put this day to rest. Good luck finding your hammer.”
“Really? That’s it?” He lets out a snort. “You’re really gonna settle for boring? You really want Santa Claus to put Cole in your stocking, is that it?”
I can’t even properly appreciate his pun. “I want to be alone.”
A long moment passes where I suspect Samuel waits to see if I’ll change my mind. When I don’t, he lets out a dejected sigh, then softy mutters, “Keep this up long enough, Malckie, you just might get your wish.”
After I take a breath, I turn around. He’s already gone. I listen to his unexpectedly soft footsteps as they descend the stairs, then the house is quiet again.
Chapter 13
One Plus One.
What I need is a day by the pool with a book, a margarita, and some nice jazz playing on a radio nearby.
No friends need to accompany me. No boyfriend, either.
And no guys named Samuel.
Just me, the pool water, the sunshine, and wherever the book wants to take me. Hopefully somewhere twenty times the distance of Narnia, Oz, and Wonderland combined.
Sadly, my options of how to enjoy the day grow limited when I awaken to the noise of rain spattering loudly against the window.
“Oh, you’d better bet I’ll strike down Zeus myself if this keeps up,” snaps Nadine over breakfast. The rain has only gotten worse, now accompanied by the occasional strike of lightning. “This was not on the forecast this week. Clear skies, that’s all I saw.”
Should I confess it now? That I’m a cursed and loveless demon who summons rain, sorrow, and doom wherever I go?
That’s what I felt like all last night as I tried to fall asleep.
Staring up at the ceiling blankly.
Even Imaginary Naked Samuel kept his distance.
“Should that be my next act as mayor?” Nadine sasses at her husband, whose sweet consoling patting of her back does nothing to actually console her. “Fire the local weatherman? Can I even do that? Is that within my power? Forget it. Jacky-Ann, these omelets are out of this world. What’d you put in them? Cocaine?”
“No,” Jacky-Ann casually replies from across the table. “Saved that for the cookies.”
“Lord help us, good thinkin’,” mutters Nadine.
The whole time at breakfast, my dad sits across from me. He’s made no effort to initiate conversation with me outside of, “Good morning, son,” when we first sat down at the table. I keep wanting to apologize for our words on the porch last night, but another part of me resents the notion. Why should I apologize? My dad is such a hypocrite when it comes to criticizing my love life, or my social life, or my blaring lack of either.