Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 85267 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85267 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 426(@200wpm)___ 341(@250wpm)___ 284(@300wpm)
“I’m not going upstairs with you.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa, Kemosabe. I meant outside—where it’s quieter. On the porch.” There’s a bench swing out there big enough for two, if she can stand the thought of sitting next to me.
“Oh.” She looks chagrined, shifting on her heels and readjusting the purse draped over her shoulder. “All right, we can do the porch. Let me just…” Her sentence trails off as she searches the crowd. “I don’t know where my friends went, normally they’d be hanging all over you. Haha. Let me just text them to tell them I’m going outside.”
Her phone appears from the back pocket of her jeans, and she taps out a quick message. Stuffs it back inside and tilts her chin in my direction. “All set.”
I hold the screen door for her after pushing through the main entrance, and we step down onto the wooden porch of the house with its wide veranda and overhang. White railings and staircase descend into a dark pit of a front yard, the streetlights lining the road doing little to illuminate the area in front of the house.
Only the flicker from two dull sconces flanking the entry provide any light.
“This isn’t creepy at all,” Charlie jokes sarcastically, instinctively moving to the far end, toward the swing. She rests her ass on it.
It squeaks on four rusty chains. They’re thin and clinging to the ceiling by tiny, round hooks.
Shit.
Should I stand? Would that be fucking weird? Me, just staring down at her? I can see down her shirt if I stand here—what if she thinks I’m being a pervert?
Like a bull in a china shop, I sit my ass down.
The swing doesn’t even swing; that’s how much I’m weighing it down, and I’m afraid to give it a push with the heel of my foot. God forbid it comes crashing to the ground.
Charlie already thinks I’m a moron; that would solidify it.
“You don’t look comfortable,” she says after a few moments, the rusty chains yelping with every subtle movement.
I wish she’d sit still.
I give the brackets above a worried peek.
Frown.
“What?” Charlie wants to know.
“Nothin’.”
“Why do you keep looking up at the ceiling? What’s up there?” Now she’s glancing up, only she has no idea what she’s looking for. “Tell me.”
“The chains don’t look sturdy.”
“Oh, well.” Charlie goes to push us off, but I stop the swing from moving forward. “Are you scared it’s going to break?”
“Yup.”
“We wouldn’t have far to fall.” She laughs, as if me falling on my ass wouldn’t be a big deal. “Why don’t you relax?”
“But…” What if the swing does crash to the ground? I imagine the loud thud, hitting my head on the wooden planks, the rusty chains covering us with a clang.
“Jackson, relax.” I watch as if it’s in slow motion as she reaches over and her fingers brush the skin of my bare knee, giving me a reassuring pat before pulling away.
My body tenses up from the contact.
That didn’t help me relax.
Quite the opposite, actually.
Game face, Triple J—shake it off.
And now I’m talking about myself in the third person, using the nickname she refuses to call me because she thinks it’s stupid, which she would no doubt give me major shit for.
My mind is a muddled mess; I do not want to date anyone. I do not want to have sex with her. I’m obviously attracted to her—Charlie is gorgeous—but I don’t want to screw her brains out. Okay, so, I have been thinking about banging her lately, but I won’t. I can think about it in passing, though…right?
Fuck.
Why did I invite her here tonight, and why am I sitting with her outside on the damn porch?
It’s quiet and dim and intimate, and there’s no one outside but the two of us, which is unusual. Normally, people are spilling out of the house, passing by, walking to other parties, neighboring houses—including mine—hosting their own loud, drunken keggers.
Charlie is the first to break the silence. “Do you live around here?”
I raise my arm. “I live there.” Point to the white house directly across the street, its lights out because everyone I room with is inside the house behind me.
Her brows go up, surprised. “You live across the street?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that the football house?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“It’s not as big as I thought it would be.”
I chuckle, hiding my smile by turning my head. She doesn’t catch it and continues prattling on.
“Bet you never get any rest.”
“Yeah. It’s pretty loud.”
“Lots of girls, too, I bet.” Charlie’s sly, passive-aggressive comment isn’t lost on me. She’s fishing for details, wanting to know if I’m a horn dog, encouraging the groupies who hang out there, parading them in and out of my room.
“Indeed there are.”
It’s the truth. There are loads of girls hanging out at our place, almost every day of the week; some days, it feels as if they’re dumped off by the truckload. Fine, not all of them are skanks—some of them are the girlfriends of my teammates. Those girls are mostly gold diggers, spreading their legs for any player with a hard-on, hoping to get pregnant, or wifed, or WAGed.