Total pages in book: 53
Estimated words: 50759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50759 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Giving attitude was not smart. I didn’t know how much Brody Adams had changed in a decade and a half, but I was guessing he wasn’t the kind of man who liked women with attitude. His empty ring finger told me that he hadn’t found a woman he liked enough—or was meek and subservient enough—to pull the trigger.
It also wasn’t smart of me to highlight my dire financial straits. You’re not supposed to give bullies ammunition, show your weak spots. But I was tired. I was defeated, and I was pissed off.
Brody’s dark brows shot up at my words and my obvious fury, not in anger but in confusion.
“Now, I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage,” he said, voice still low, rumbly, almost warm. He didn’t even have steam coming from his mouth despite the chill in the air.
Damn fucking mountain man.
“You seem to know me well enough to dislike me, if getting up this much fire before the sun has truly risen is anything to go by,” he continued. He had the gall to have a twinkle in his eye and half a smirk on his face.
“You don’t remember me,” I scoffed. Yeah, I might’ve looked a little different insofar as I had learned to tame my wild hair so it was no longer orange and frizzy. I’d had it colored and treated so it was auburn and shiny.
Though I wouldn’t be able to afford those treatments anymore.
My skin had cleared up since high school, and a lot of the freckles that had covered spots not taken over by acne had faded with the California sun, resulting in a light dusting over my nose. I got Lasik surgery after carefully weighing the pros and the cons of such a procedure. Though there had been instances of it not working for some people, it was successful for me, so I didn’t need to wear glasses anymore.
My once shapeless frame had finally filled out in the right places, though more weight went to my butt and thighs than I would’ve liked.
In short, I’d grown up. I’d grown out of all of those awkward teenage features that plagued most of the population who weren’t starring in a CW series.
But even though I lived in L.A., I hadn’t gotten any surgical procedures—beyond the Lasik—nor had I drastically changed my appearance. I still looked like me.
Just like Brody Adams looked like him.
Yes, there was gray in his stubble and hair, the scar, the muscles, and that joyful sheen of youth seemed to have gone. But in my mind, he was still the captain of the football team and one of the leaders of my torture brigade.
“I would definitely remember you if I was at my best when we met, which I obviously was not,” he continued, sounding friendly and apologetic.
“We didn’t have some drunken one-night stand,” I snapped, guessing at what he was alluding to.
“I know,” he replied. “I don’t do drunken one-night stands.” He had the gall to sound like he was some kind of decent guy who respected women. Too bad I had hard evidence to refute that fact.
“Oh, please,” I muttered.
He leaned farther into the open window. Too close. “I’m gonna offer you an apology for whatever I did to ignite this ire, and how about I let you off with a warning for the brake light?”
He was still going for the easy, teasing, friendly small-town cop routine. With just a smidge of that smoldering, rugged male thing that probably worked on a lot of women. At least the women who hadn’t gone to high school with him.
“Oh, yes. That’ll fix everything,” I snapped. “You letting me out of the ticket. How gracious of you.”
I had an overwhelming urge to headbutt him. Even though I had no idea how to headbutt someone. I’d taken one self-defense class when I moved to L.A., but it was a disaster because I was not what anyone would call athletic nor coordinated.
Headbutting him would likely only give me a bleeding head and more than likely a charge of assaulting a police officer, so I refrained.
Brody reeled back from my words and the anger behind them, obviously still surprised, still trying to remember me.
He opened his mouth again, probably to try more of the charm.
“Is that it?” I asked him, thrumming my fingers on the steering wheel. “I said I’d come back here when hell froze over, and it is definitely cold enough for that. I’ve been driving for ten hours, and I would really like this interaction to be over.”
I didn’t think his eyebrows could’ve gone higher, but they did. And I waited. For the boy I’d known to show up in the man I didn’t. Because people didn’t change. And he was obviously given power and authority, and bullies did not wield power with benevolence. So I waited for the change, for him to use that badge to make sure I paid for my insolence against him.