Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122506 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
“What on earth is a trip nanny?”
Poor Mila. She must feel like she’s in an alternate universe.
“The person who monitors your welfare,” I explain pensively. As though I’ve never indulged. Like I said, it was a long time ago.
“When you’re trippin’ balls. Which you weren’t.” Sarai scowls “Or you wouldn’t have been if you hadn’t been throwing back vodka.”
“Hey—you gave me drugs!” Mila points an angry finger. “You don’t get to make me feel bad.”
“I asked first,” Sarai says again. “And I didn’t lie. They do take them in the villages for all kinds of stuff. You must’ve had way more vodka than the bottle stashed in your cleavage.”
“You had a bottle of vodka in your cleavage?” It probably wasn’t the best idea to give in to a smile. Or for my gaze to drop to the area in question. But it doesn’t linger, thanks to the backhanded slap Mila lands on my chest.
“I was just trying to work out how!” I say with a chuckle.
“Do you seriously think I had space in that dress for a bottle of vodka?”
“Well, there wasn’t one in there last night.” The dress that clung to her curves like a second skin, the dress I got to peel her out of. “But maybe I should take another look, just to be certain.” I playfully reach for the neck of her sundress.
“Hey!” Poking me in the chest, she makes a V of her fingers in the direction of her face. “My eyes are up here, thank you very much!”
“Your gorgeous eyes are the second most beautiful thing about you.”
“Rude!”
“Your personality being the first,” I answer with mock offense.
She narrows her eyes. God, she’s beautiful when she’s riled. But it’s not her eyes, her personality, or her body that makes me feel the way I do. It’s just . . . her.
“Maybe I should give up chemistry and take up matchmaking,” Sarai says, with a considering tilt to her head.
“With or without the illegal substances?” Mila snaps again.
“Shrooms are medicinal. They’re basically relaxants. I only intended for you to have a good time. The issue had to be your fun-size vodkas.”
“I was nervous!” Mila protests. “I always keep a miniature or two on hand.”
“One or two?” Sarai pulls a doubtful face.
“At least I only self-administered. It’s a perfectly acceptable way to calm an anxious bride. And I was an anxious bride. One who didn’t want to prance about in her underwear.”
“Okay, so I should’ve checked you knew what I was talking about,” Sarai says, her tone almost contrite. But not quite. “And I should’ve asked if you’d drank others when you pulled the bottle from . . .”
“My cleavage,” Mila finishes.
“I’m sorry,” Sarai mutters.
“You weren’t to know,” Mila answers with a sigh. Her cheeks flushed, she’s no doubt embarrassed now.
“You were okay, though, weren’t you, Fin?”
“Don’t try recruiting me for your team,” I say, sidestepping Sarai’s question.
My memory of last night is thoroughly intact, the images filed away under the title “The Night of My Life.” That’s not to say I was completely unaffected, I now realize. After drinking the coconut water, maybe a tranquilness did seep through my limbs, and maybe, in hindsight, I was a little buzzed. Things were pleasant. Slower and a little dreamlike. But the effects were mild and short lived. I remember everything and I have zero regrets.
“You didn’t need any happy juice.” Sarai’s lips twist into a reluctant half smile. “Bruh, you were stanning so hard last night.”
I’m not going to deny it.
“When you said—” Her eyes dart Mila’s way before she seems to think better of what she was about to reveal. “Anyway, what you did was dope.”
And nothing to do with the shrooms.
I’m disappointed Mila doesn’t remember, though it now makes sense. I also know that the things she said last night were the truth, that her behavior, her feelings, were amplified, not manufactured.
The truth and her truth. I heard it in the ache in her words, just as I’d glimpsed it in the closet all those months ago.
“I feel like a dope,” Mila says suddenly. “Would you two stop grinning at each other and talking about things I don’t understand?”
“Sorry?”
“It’s very childish,” she continues. “It’s like some horrible teenage flashback where I’ve missed the punch line again and I’m being made fun of for my weird-smelling sandwiches.”
Sarai gives a roll of her eyes. “I couldn’t possibly relate to being different,” she announces. Cocking her hip, she taps a finger to her face to indicate her own sense of otherness. “You’ve never suffered until you’ve stunk the canteen out with the smell of fermented fish.”
“Ever had knitted lamb intestines?” A smile lurks in the shape of Mila’s mouth.
“To wear or to eat?” Sarai asks, mildly horrified.
“Kukurec is food.” Mila gives in to a reluctant chuckle. “It’s a dish with intestines and—”