Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 60219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
He was perfect. At least I thought so. I’d had a crush on him for three years running, and even his tacky insistence on wearing massive belt buckles did nothing to dissuade me from going to every game. I would sit in the crowd on the top bleacher, usually with an umbrella spread over me to keep from getting sunburned. It was that kind of sweet crush that you fawn over that makes you reach for every chance you get to see them. But right now I couldn’t think about that. Not when I felt like a giant fool in front of him.
Slowly, my eyes trailed upward, doing everything they could to stay focused somewhere near his belt buckle but perhaps a bit lower. I didn’t want to look up. That’s where his face would be. A face that would be staring down at me. And probably laughing.
Tears welled up in my eyes, but I refused to let them fall as I scrambled to my knees and began sweeping the mess I made towards me.
“Sorry, sorry,” I said, repeating myself in a voice that felt like it was far away.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, kneeling down. Suddenly, I felt a jolt of white-hot electricity and looked down to see his hand on my shoulder.
He was touching me.
“Sorry,” I repeated again, though the words barely escaped my lips.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes focused on mine.
“I’m fine,” I muttered after a moment, struggling to regain the ability to control my lips. “I’m fine. I’m sorry. I was clumsy.”
“No, you’re fine,” he said. “I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going. Here, let me help you.” Graham started picking up bottles of paint and pulling them toward me. “Do you need help carrying this? It’s a lot of stuff.”
“No, I’ve got it,” I lied. “I just… lost my balance for a second.”
“Seriously, I can help,” he said. “I don’t need to be at practice for another half hour. I was just going to go grab a shower first.”
Something inside my stomach did a gymnastics routine at the thought of him in the shower running through my mind. I had to clamp that down like a vise, both so I could have any functioning capabilities at all and so I could crystallize it and think about it later.
“No, I’m fine,” I said, standing with the canvas and paint on top. Almost immediately, a couple bottles fell, and as I reached for them, the canvas unfurled and fell again too. “Shit.”
I clamped my hand over my mouth. I never cursed.
Graham just grinned. It was the kind of grin that had the ability to melt. I couldn’t seem to feel my fingertips all of a sudden.
“Where are you headed to?” he asked.
“You don’t need to help,” I said. “I’m sure you’re busy. You have way, way more important things to do than help me carry things to the theater.”
“The theater it is,” he said, smiling. “Here, I’ll take that.”
Reaching around me, he grabbed the canvas and folded it back up easily. He was so close I could feel his breath on my cheek. His cologne was warm and spicy, and I felt like I could slather it on my pillow and sleep forever, happily.
Graham stood, somehow carrying everything in one arm and holding the other out to me. The light behind him on the ceiling made a halo around his head, and for a moment, he looked like a hero from one of those comic book movies. He might as well have been. Graham Miller, baseball superhero from Gotham… or something. I was a bit behind on big explosive summer blockbusters. It wasn’t like anyone was taking me to the movies, so when I went, it was to whatever romance chick flick I wanted to see.
I took his hand and felt like my knees might just not work when I got upright. Thankfully, they had just enough to hold on, and when he let me go, I briefly thought about how I might just stand around and look at my hand for a while later. He had held it. With his pitching hand no less.
“So, what’s the play about?” he asked. “I keep meaning to go to one, but I’m always so damn busy.”
“The play?” I asked, suddenly going completely blank. Then it hit me. I was having a conversation with him. A real, one-on-one, real-person conversation. Not one where I was making up the whole thing in my head while I daydreamed about him, but one where actual words were going to have to come out of my mouth. Lovely words. Words that showed interest in me and what I do.
Hell, I would take any words at the moment. He was looking at me and waiting. Panic struck my throat, and I tried to force something out. Anything.