Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 385(@200wpm)___ 308(@250wpm)___ 257(@300wpm)
She half-rolled her eyes before snatching the remote from the comforter. “I realize you’re a pessimist. I guess you think falling in love with someone that fast is unrealistic.”
I didn’t. Because I was pretty sure I had fallen in love that fast with her. It was everything else, from the animal biting to the sailboat. “No, I think there is no way whatever his name was—”
“Tripp.”
“Stupid name,” I said, and she scoffed. “But yes, Tripp. There’s no way that Tripp could have afforded that sailboat. He didn’t even work.”
“He was a yacht broker.”
My alarm went off to remind me to do a Live Feed for my Wanderlust account. “He had a job?” I asked, shoving off the bed to grab my shirt.
“Yes, how did you miss that?”
“Maybe I got stuck on the dolphin almost drowning him…”
“It was good.”
I tugged my T-shirt over my head, unrolling it down my stomach. “It was okay.”
“You laughed. Which means it made you feel good. And that’s the whole point of a romantic comedy.” She changed the channel. “They aren’t supposed to make sense. Their only job is to make you smile.”
I smoothed a hand over my shirt before leaning over the bed to give her a kiss. “If it made you happy, I’m happy.”
I took my phone from the nightstand and went to stand by the window before clicking on the option to “Go Live.”
“Hey, Vagabonders! Vance here. We’ve been in Rome for three days, and as you can see—” I flipped the camera around to the monsoon coming down outside the hotel window. “All it’s done since we’ve arrived in Rome is rain.”
A sad emoji floated up from the bottom of the screen, followed by another.
“At least I can say the delivery pizza here in Italy is—” I made a chef’s kiss gesture—“amazing. We’re headed to Pisa in the morning via train, then off to Florence, where the weather is supposed to be much better. I’ll snap some good photos for you guys there.”
A message bubble popped on the screen.
TammiLuvsToTravel: Have you been sharing a room with the girl you don’t like? Has it been terrible?
“Hey, TammiLuvsToTravel. Oh, it’s been…” I fought the smartass smile that wanted to creep over my face. “Awful.” Then I glanced back to the bed at Blake.
She had her phone in her face, completely ignoring me while most likely reading some smutty romance novel that was going to pay off tenfold for me in half an hour.
“Truly torturous,” I said. “One out of ten. Do not recommend.”
“They really need an option for zero stars,” Blake mumbled in the background.
At the very least, if Amanda watched the live feed, she may have believed we still hated each other and hadn’t been fucking on the company’s dime.
BingBangBong: I bought a couple’s package for the Maldives six months ago. Caught my boyfriend cheating on me last month and broke it off, but the resort won’t refund us. Any advice on how to survive?”
“Well, your ex is a dick if he cheated on you and—”
“I’ll tell you what you do, BingBangBong.” Blake had evidently been watching the live feed. Not reading. “You take that sack of shit with you, crush up three doses of ex-lax, and lace his dinner with it right before you go scuba diving. Then you videotape him shitting in the Indian Ocean, post it to social media. Tag the girl he’s currently with, his boss, and his mother, and then you go find a hot-bodied cabana boy and have a grand old time.”
“Also—” I gave a curt nod—“you could do that.”
I answered a few more questions, mostly about whether the pasta was better in Italy than Olive Garden, which, yes, it was. I wasn’t sure why anyone would assume it wasn’t. Then I signed off.
“Truly torturous?” Blake asked when I chucked my phone to the dresser.
“Horrendous.” I crawled onto the bed beside her. “Insufferable.” I slid my hands over her smooth, bare legs as I leaned toward her perfect-to-me face and pressed a kiss to her mouth. “A gauntlet of excruciating and harrowing ordeals.”
She moaned when I whispered that against her lips. “Now, that’s how you talk dirty to me.” Her hands slipped beneath my shirt, gliding over my stomach.
“Do you like my circumlocution?”
Her nails raked from my sides to my back. “So much.” She nipped at my lip. “Go faster.”
“Cacophony. Sesquipedalian. Fortuitous.”
“Faster.” She faked a moan, her head sinking deeper into the pillow. “Say it faster.”
“Nefarious, assiduous, perfunctory, honorificabilitudinitatibus.”
She paused the kiss. “What?”
“Oh, did I find a word you don’t know?”
“You did.”
Another kiss. “That should earn me something.”
Her hands swept down my back, her leg hooked around my waist. “Did you learn those just for me?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I like you.”
Closing her eyes, she pressed her lips together. “I like you, too.” Then she opened her eyes. “A lot.”
My phone rang in the background while my heart pounded in my chest. The words, “I think I love you,” were right on the tip of my tongue, but instead, I went with, “Me too.” And then I kissed her, slow and reverent, hoping my lips would tell her what I was too chicken shit to say.