Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 66865 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 66865 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 334(@200wpm)___ 267(@250wpm)___ 223(@300wpm)
“Why didn’t you eat anything?”
“I wasn’t about to go digging through your cabinets.”
“Why?”
“Because I barely know you—it would have been rude.”
“You want to stop somewhere and grab something?”
“No! No. It’s okay, I have food at home.”
“You sure? What about that little diner on the corner of South and Meridian—they make a killer omelet.”
I mentally calculate the meager change stuffed inside my wallet. It’s barely ten dollars and the only cash I have.
“Yes, I’m sure, but thank you for the offer.”
“Come on,” he urges. “Do you have somewhere else to be right now?”
“Don’t you? You’re the one with rugby practice today, right?”
“Later. At noon.” His car is no longer headed toward my apartment, damn him. He’s the shittiest listener; I’ll have to remember that from now on.
“Kip, it’s fine. Really.” I cannot spend my money on food when I need it for rent, books, and tuition. Frivolous spending is not in my budget for the month.
But for some reason, he isn’t letting it go, and he isn’t taking me home.
“My treat.”
Well. In that case. “Fine—twist my arm.” Because honestly, I’m starving, and food from an actual restaurant sounds like heaven. Cinnamon roll? Eggs? Breakfast sausages?
Yes, please.
***
KIP
Jesus, where is she putting all that food she ordered?
Seriously, Teddy is tiny—compared to me. I guess for a girl, she’s pretty average, but next to my six foot four? She’s pocket sized.
And she’s stuffing breakfast links in her face with a forkful of egg and washing it down with chocolate milk. It’s more than I’ll pile in my mouth at once.
“Is that going to be enough food for you? Sure you don’t want to order more?” I tease, eyeing her plate of eggs, hash browns, and the side order of a giant cinnamon roll. The quantity rivals mine, and with both our heads bent, we go at it, stuffing our faces like we haven’t eaten in days.
I’ll pay for this during practice by running it off with extra laps around the field, but right now, the greasy breakfast is worth it.
Even if I end up with the shits later.
I shovel a spoonful of food into my mouth and chew, wiping my mouth with the sleeve of my sweatshirt, totally cognizant of the fact that if my mother saw me right now, her mouth would fall open in horror at my complete lack of decorum, my complete disregard for the manners she drilled into me from day one.
“Gross, you have eggs in your beard.” Teddy’s lilting, soft voice floats across the table, half amused, half disgusted.
“Where?” I don’t tell her that half the time when I eat, food ends up in my beard, a hazard of having so much hair hanging from my face. “Show me.”
“I’m not touching it.”
I snicker into my napkin as I swipe it across the lower half of my face, tempted to throw in a That’s what she said but think better of it when her lip curls up and her eyes narrow like she knows I’m thinking it.
I don’t even have to say it.
Nice.
“Don’t say it.”
I shrug. “I wasn’t going to.”
“But you were thinking about it.”
I laugh and egg flies out of my mouth. Teddy’s disdain grows, lip now completely curled up under her pert little nose.
“Yeah, I almost said it.”
“Wipe your face, Kipling.”
Ugh, that fucking name. “Dude, I can’t help it if shit falls out of my mouth.”
“You’re disgusting. I’m never eating with you again.”
“I have a feeling you’d eat with me every night of the week if I was paying for it.”
Teddy considers this, finally nodding. “You’re right, but only because my budget is so tight moths fly out of my wallet when I open it.”
“That’s sad.” The words leave my mouth before I can stop them. Insensitive as they are, Teddy doesn’t so much as blush.
“Poor me, I know. Feed me, Kip!” Her laugh is punctuated by the fork in her hand stabbing at the sausage on her plate, metal meeting porcelain, her moan fills the air between us as she stuffs the entire thing in her pretty mouth.
“Now who’s the slob here? You don’t have to be a pig about it because I had food in my beard.”
She rolls her eyes pretty damn hard. “You’re also spitting food out.”
No shit, but, “Not on purpose.”
She flops her fork in the air, pointing it in my direction and squinting. “Still, didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”
If only she knew. Not only did my mother teach me manners, she hired etiquette coaches to come to the house and drill manners into Veronica and me—actual fucking etiquette coaches like it’s the year 1845 or some shit.
No one can tell Lilith Carmichael what to do, and what she wanted was for her children to be impeccably mannered and well-behaved. And we were.
For a while.
Then, my sister and I became two teenagers who hated the watchful eyes of our parents, their staff, and the media. Our parents weren’t just wealthy, they were celebrities in our corner of the country, Dad appearing on news broadcasts, buying up a professional football team when his net-worth topped nine figures.