Total pages in book: 112
Estimated words: 107944 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107944 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 540(@200wpm)___ 432(@250wpm)___ 360(@300wpm)
Or maybe he simply stood taller because confidence did that to a person.
Were his eyes bluer, too? Gosh, I missed his blue eyes. At least those didn’t gain biceps.
Aiden cocked an eyebrow. “Are you still giving me the silent treatment?” he asked, nudging me in the arm.
I stepped to my right and turned my body away from him. He’d been back in town for almost twelve hours now, and I hadn’t said a word to him since I’d seen how he went from looking like Steve Rogers pre-experimental serum from the government to Captain freaking America!!
The freaking nerve!
“Come on, Jerry,” he egged on as he began tapping his hand against my arm.
I whipped myself away from his reach. “Don’t call me Jerry. Only my best friend calls me Jerry, and you are not my best friend anymore.”
Was I being childish? Yes. Was I being overly dramatic? Also yes.
“Don’t be dramatic,” he scolded.
“You’ve known me for seventeen years. Dramatic is all I’ve ever been. I mean, seriously, Tom, this is our senior year. You were supposed to come back chunky with no remorse because since you’ve been gone, I found twenty-five extra pounds to carry around. You weren’t supposed to come back looking like that!”
Thirty extra pounds.
I didn’t know why I told him twenty-five.
The subtraction of that extra five pounds made me feel a little better about myself. Mama said a number on a scale didn’t define a person, but boy, oh boy, some days, it felt like the only thing defining my existence.
Aiden was smirking ear to ear, beaming with pride.
“Why the smirk?” I grumbled.
“Nothing, it’s just… You called me Tom.”
Oh crap.
I huffed. “I didn’t mean it.”
“You did. You meant it because no matter how annoyed you are with my increasingly good looks and toned body, you still consider me the Tom to your Jerry.”
“All I’m saying is we had an unwritten rule to come back for our senior year looking fat and ugly, and you failed.”
“Not to be the bearer of bad news, but you failed at both of those things, too.”
A smile slipped out of me, knocking my stubbornness sideways.
Sweet jerk.
I couldn’t stand that man, who I’d stupidly missed more than words over the past year. When we were kids, our moms always called Aiden and me Tom and Jerry because we were always chasing each other back and forth day and night like the classic cat and mouse cartoon. We were glued to one another’s hips growing up. He was my Tom; I was his Jerry. We even wore friendship necklaces for it. He wore me around his neck, a little mouse. And I wore him around mine, a feisty cat. Corny? Yes. Us? Completely.
He'd even accepted his Emmy award wearing said necklace. That made me smile.
“Okay, well, if we’re going to start our senior year hating one another, at least let me tell you that I missed your bad attitude,” Aiden said. His dark brown hair was smoothed back, highlighting his waves. When did the guy start using hair gel? And was that sweet, earthy, oak scent coming from him? What did those Californians do to my best friend? I hated it because, well, I kind of loved it, and it was messing with my head that I loved the changes. My heart was pounding aggressively against my rib cage, and I didn’t know why.
“Whatever.” I gave him a hard look and shrugged. “I missed you, too.”
“Handshake?”
“Aiden, we’re seniors now. We can’t go around doing our corny handshakes anymore.” He began wiggling his fingers in my direction, and I groaned. “Seriously, Aiden. We made that up when we were nine. We need to let it go.”
Still ignoring me, he put his hand out in front of him, palm facing me, and began the chant. “Pancake, pancake, up real high.”
Without hesitation, I joined in patting my hand against his. “If you toss it, it will fly.”
He smacked the back of his hand against mine three times. “If you drop it, it will go.”
We both spun once, then faced one another, patted hands, and did a weird body roll as we said, “Down the drains where the creepy clown flows.”
When we were kids, we had a sleepover at my parents’ house on Halloween, and when it was time for us to go to bed, we snuck downstairs and watched IT. Ever since then, we had a thing for creepy clowns, horror movies, and corny handshakes.
The obnoxiously loud pale-yellow school bus hiccupped and skirted in our direction. I silently thanked myself that it would be my last year of riding the banana train to hell.
“Aren’t you a famous actor now? Shouldn’t you be driving us to school in a Mercedes-Benz or something?” I asked.
“My parents said the same thing, but I wanted to experience the whole school package one last time. You know, one for the road.”