Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 105306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 527(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105306 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 527(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
“Are you Ryann?”
I shift on my heels. “I don’t talk to strangers.”
Obviously.
“False. Otherwise you wouldn’t have just told me you don’t talk to strangers.”
“Excuse me?”
When the guy laughs, a puff of steam leaves his lips. “I’m Dallas—and I’m cold as fuck, so…”
“Yeah, well, so am I because we’re standing here and you haven’t gotten to your point.”
Sensing I’m in zero danger, I start walking again, brain shouting that this is the elusive Dallas Colter Winnie was dishing about. I’m confused about why he was waiting for me outside of my job.
I stop again on the sidewalk. “Wait—were you waiting for me?”
That is what he was doing, right?
“Yeah.”
“Why?” I’ve never met this guy in my life—it’s not as if we run in the same circles. This is a guy who, if Winnie and Kyle are correct, is headed for the major leagues or professionals or whatever they call it when a guy keeps playing ball after they graduate.
“It’s about Diego.”
Instantly, my hands fly up to cover my mouth. “Oh my God, did something bad happen?”
“Why would you think something happened?”
“Um, because you’re here at my job like a creep, leaning up against the building waiting for me! Plus, he canceled our date.” I gasp again. “Oh my God, is this why he canceled the date? Because something is wrong?”
“Dude, calm down.”
Dude, calm down? Never have I ever been called dude by a guy; not sure how I feel about it, either.
The wind whips my hair, sending my ponytail sailing past my mouth.
“So. I’m just going to rip off the Band-Aid.” Dallas Colter pulls his hands out of his jacket pockets and claps them together definitively. “Diego is breaking up with you.”
I’m sorry. What? “Excuse me?”
“I said, Diego is breaking up with—”
I hold my freezing-cold hand in the air. “No, I heard you. I just…” I start to laugh. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. No offense.”
I begin walking down the sidewalk, still giggling to myself at how absurd that is, why some strange guy I’ve never met has appeared at my job to dump me.
As if.
“Diego sent me to break up with you,” he calls to my back, and when I turn to glance at him, I see he’s still in the middle of the sidewalk. Legs parted, arms crossed.
My steps falter.
“Sorry, dude,” he says. “He paid me to break up with you. Didn’t have the balls to do it himself.”
This time when I turn to face him, I storm forward, finger pointed in his direction. “Are you kidding me right now? Diego Lorenz would never pay someone to break up with me. We’re barely dating!” I laugh. “We barely kiss!” I point out. “We’ve never even—”
“Had sex? Yeah, I know.”
If my face wasn’t already red from the harsh wind hitting it, it would be red from embarrassment.
He told this guy we’ve never had sex? Like it’s my fault we weren’t doing it? What an asshole!
“He paid you? How much?”
Dallas shrugs his broad shoulders. “Fifty bucks.”
I can feel my eyes almost bugging out of my skull, frustration and shock widening them. “You’re going to stand there and tell me you’re so hard up for cash you took fifty bucks from some kid on your team to dump his girlfriend?”
He shrugs again. “I never said I was hard up. For anything.”
His cocky grin makes me want to pop him in the face with a towel.
“You think it’s okay to come up to some girl you’ve never met and drop a bomb like that? Neither of you considered how it was going to make me feel?”
What if I were heartbroken? Then what would he have done?
What if I’d started to cry or get hysterical?
What if I’d had a catatonic meltdown like I’ve seen some girls do?
What if—
“Uh, judging by how pissed off you look, I feel like you’re misdirecting your anger at me instead of Diego. He’s the one you should be pissed at.”
My arms go up, then down. The jerk needs to stop interrupting my thoughts.
“Do you see him anywhere? No. Can hardly get pissed at someone who didn’t think he had to show up for the party!” I begin stomping away. “Asshole.”
Behind me, Dallas laughs again, that dopey, loud laugh. “Are you calling me an asshole or your ex-boyfriend an asshole? Be more specific.”
The nerve of this guy! Who the hell does he think he is? What kind of guy does this, Diego notwithstanding? He took fifty dollars to dump me? We were barely going out in the first place!
Freaking guys.
This is why I was single for so long before going out with Diego, and now I know why!
The outrage!
The—
“Want a ride back to wherever it is you live?”
Wherever it is you live? Lord, this guy is terrible with words. He needs a lesson on subtlety.
“As if I’d get in a car with you.” As the words leave my mouth, a cold shock of wind hits my face, leaving me breathless. Chills run down my lower spine, and I shiver.