Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 130307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
It hurt at first. Then it was just uncomfortable.
It lasted approximately forty-eight seconds, and to this day, I still counted them as the worst of my life.
Add in the fact that the jerk bragged to his friends the next day before promptly making me out to be some kind of Stage 5 Clinger, as he’d put it, and it was then that you could say my appetite for romance was snuffed out like a match flame.
It had devastated me that my mom and grandma were right.
I’d wanted so desperately to have the kind of love I’d seen in The Notebook. I’d even dreamed about something as hilariously inevitable as the stubborn, helplessly love-sick situations in No Strings Attached or Friends with Benefits.
I wanted to be the average girl who turned the head of the billionaire, or the shy bookworm who got the quarterback, or the cool advertising account manager who fell for her childhood best friend.
But I didn’t have a childhood best friend.
I was the furthest thing from cool.
And my only experience with a boy had left a taste in my mouth so sour, I still wasn’t rid of it even seven years later.
So, here I was, twenty-six and devoted to my life as a teacher. I didn’t watch romance movies anymore, but instead indulged in crime documentaries. I didn’t listen to love songs, but to podcasts about how cool ants are. I didn’t go on dates, but instead spent my evenings with my three cats and my current project — be it sewing, knitting, painting, or some other craft I saw on social media.
To some, I knew it seemed an unfathomable existence. It sounded lonely and pathetic.
But I liked being alone. I liked throwing my all into my classroom, into the students whom I had the chance to plant seeds with at the perfect age for them to sprout. I never felt lonely, not with my cats, my mom, and my grandma.
I did, however, feel stuck sometimes — like I wasn’t living life, but rather that life was living me.
“Oops!”
I blinked out of my thoughts as Ava sent the glass of murky water toppling, and instead of moving to clean it, she just looked over her shoulder at me.
I smirked, grabbing the tray of fruits, veggies, and crackers I’d put together and bringing it with me into the living room — along with a towel.
“Don’t worry, my little angel bug,” I said, pressing the towel into the wet carpet. “Life’s no fun without making a mess once in a while.”
Mr. Turkey
Will
Chef Arushi Patel was proof that angels were real.
It had been Uncle Mitch who’d first found her. Shortly after Jenny died, when I could barely keep my kid alive and drag my ass to work, I came home one day to find her in my kitchen. My uncle knew I needed help, but he also knew I wasn’t capable of seeking it out myself.
A normal, well-functioning person would have been shocked by a stranger in their home.
But I was numb to everything at the time.
I hadn’t so much as questioned her presence, tending to Ava as Chef Patel cooked me my first hot meal not from a drive-thru in weeks. When I finished eating, she cleaned up the kitchen, crossed her arms, arched a brow at me, and said, “We doing this?”
I’d had her on a weekly payroll ever since.
Tonight, she was whipping up an elevated version of chicken nuggets and macaroni and cheese — something Ava loved, but I could also tolerate, with Chef putting her spin on it. The chicken was always well-cooked and juicy, seasoned to perfection without too much breading, and the pasta was so good I’d licked my plate clean the first time she made it. Add in that she always somehow found a way to sneak in vegetables and get Ava excited about them, and you could say Chef was first on my short list of things in life I was grateful for.
“Thank you for accommodating an extra guest,” I said to her as I sat at the kitchen island, wincing a bit as I did. Practice had been brutal, and so had the last few games. January was when every team in the league started getting a clearer picture of whether they had a shot at the playoffs or not, and we were hungry for the Cup this year.
“Are you kidding? I’m just happy you have a guest.” She shook her head as she stirred the pasta. Her black hair was pulled into a tight ponytail that swung a bit as she did. “I was beginning to worry you didn’t have any friends.”
“I have plenty of friends,” I grumbled.
“Uncle Mitch doesn’t count.”
“I have my team.”
“Oh, that’s right,” she said, leaning a hip against the edge of the stove and tapping the wooden spoon against her chin. “I think I met a few of your teammates. One time. In the five years I’ve known you.” She pointed the spoon at me. “You must be so close.”