Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Tamika’s eyes turn syrupy with joy. “Really? You’d do that?”
“Of course.”
She glances up at the stage once more, her foot bouncing in place under the table. “Screw it, yeah, I’ll leave while there’s still a tiny bit of sun left. These back roads get so dark.” She reaches over and squeezes my arm. “Thanks, Noah. I owe you.”
I think about the sticky note she wrote me that one day, how it’s still stuck to my drawer—You got this! Keep smiling!—and all of the times it gave me the push I needed to face my day. “You don’t owe me anything, Tamika. Have fun.”
“Fun?” She snorts. “What’s fun about digital flashcards and being two chapters behind in my—You know what? It’s not even worth explaining. Thanks again, Noah, and I do owe you.” With a wink, she sweeps away from the table, heading off.
I smile, feeling satisfied, then turn my attention back toward the stage just in time to discover that the bachelors have returned. It seems like Nadine and a couple of the crew members are having a chat with them at the side of the stage, probably to go over the details. After all, that’s where they say the devil is.
I hear a sudden, out-of-place cackle. For a second, I think it came from Tanner’s table, then realize it’s the boisterous laughter of a woman I didn’t notice before, seated just a few tables closer to me. There’s something at once that strikes me as familiar about her, though I can’t place it at all. Also, she’s facing away, and that obviously doesn’t help. She’s seated with a young man, also facing away. The two of them seem to be pointing up at the stage a lot and whispering to each other. Are they more of Anthony’s friends who were invited? Mindy’s friends? Nadine’s? Someone else’s?
Then the woman turns to her friend and starts talking more animatedly with him, gesturing with a hand, her eyes alight with laughter and excitement.
Then she laughs again.
Watching her face move, it hits me.
Mae, the woman from Tumbleweeds the night of my date with Cole where we played some rounds of pool. The one with the bald husband. That’s her, sitting over there having too much fun.
But why is she here?
Then the friend next to her shakes his head and looks away with a smirk, as if tired of laughing at her jokes, perhaps not as inspired to laugh at them as she is.
And I see his high, handsome cheekbones.
His striking, crystalline eyes.
His full lips and devastating five o’clock shadow.
His insanely chiseled jawline.
My stomach drops through the floor like a stage weight. That isn’t a friend of Mae’s. It’s her hot brother. The one she promised would come to the auction and bid top dollar on Cole.
Whose guests are they?
How are they here?
Why is the whole pavilion spinning around suddenly?
The two of them face forward when Nadine starts directing her crew to start the swimsuit section. I can’t even pay attention, my eyes glued to Mae and her brother … these two invaders of our safe space, these devious infiltrators, these seductive spies …
“I saw the movie, too,” mumbles Patrick.
I’m too distracted to even turn to him. “Movie …?”
“Such a bummer the demon sorcerer and paladin don’t end up together in the end.”
His words smack my face like the back of an actual hand. I turn to him. “What’d you just say?”
“The movie.” He yawns, wipes his eyes, then shakes his head. “It sucks how it ended, how something neither of them could’ve predicted comes between them at the last minute: the demon that was trapped in the sorcerer’s mind taking over … and then the paladin forced to raise his sword against the one he loves … phew.” He squints up at the stage. “They’re really showing it all, huh?”
I stare at Patrick for a while, unable to comprehend anything past the spoiler he just dumped over my head.
I think there might be a reason Cole and I haven’t made use of our movie theater rain checks we got that one night.
A reason I haven’t seen the second half yet.
Maybe I was afraid of how the story ends.
“Wait,” mumbles Patrick belatedly. “Did you say you only saw half the movie …? Did I just …?”
“And your Mr. Picture Perfect: Cole Harding!” cries the emcee.
In a total daze, I slowly twist my head back to the stage, where I see Cole strutting to the front, a confident grin on his face, in the shirt I helped him button up. He slowly undoes the buttons while the few invited guests scattered among the tables cheer him on in the way an actual audience would. Tanner hoots. Jimmy makes a weird whistling noise with his fingers in his mouth. When the last button is finally undone, Cole casts the shirt aside, revealing his tight, muscled body in just the tiny pair of Speedos that proudly display every molecule of bulge he’s been gifted with. It’s now a gift he’s giving to everyone in sight.