Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
“Looks like I may have to change my number after all,” he murmurs, picking up before the first ring ends.
And I have to draw up my knees to my chest and wrap my arms around my bare legs, physically holding myself together with his gravelly voice filling my ear. “Why are you being such an asshole?”
“Probably because I am such an asshole,” he responds flippantly.
I breathe out sharply. “Okay, fine. Shepard. Shepard Thorne. Your twin brother, remember him? Put him back on the team.”
“Ah,” he goes. “You mean your boyfriend.”
I think he puts emphasis on the ‘boyfriend.’
A great emphasis. As if saying it in underlined italics. As if saying it with an underlying meaning.
But maybe it’s just me.
Maybe I’m making things up in my head.
“Yes, my boyfriend.” I swallow, still uncomfortable lying to him. “You benched him. You need to fix it.”
“Hmm.” He almost purrs in my ear and I dig my nails into my thighs. “That’s not how you do it.”
“That’s not how you do what?” I snap.
“Beg on your boyfriend’s behalf.”
My spine straightens. “What?”
“That’s what you’re doing, aren’t you?” he drawls. “Begging me.”
I press my phone to my ear and say with clenched teeth, “I’m not begging you. I will never beg you.”
“Although I will say that I’m a little surprised,” he says without paying attention to what I said.
“There is no need for you to be surprised. Because I’m not—”
“Didn’t know he’d send a girl to make his case,” he finishes. “But it’s understandable if he’s a little intimidated.”
And I’m gritting my teeth so hard that it becomes tough to speak.
But I manage it somehow.
“He is not intimidated,” I tell him. “Okay? He is so not intimidated by you. In fact, my boyfriend will kick your ass any day of the week.”
“And twice on Sunday, I assume,” he inquires with a mocking tone.
“Oh, you think it’s funny?”
“No, I just think he’ll probably be too busy running laps around the field come Sunday, and every day of the week for that matter, to kick anyone’s ass, let alone his coach’s,” he drawls. “So I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”
My nostrils flare with a large, angry breath. “This is an abuse of power. You know that, don’t you?”
“I know,” he says simply, casually.
I shake my head. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you doing this?”
For the next couple of seconds, all I hear is my own breaths, fast and loud. Like I’m waiting for a bomb to explode. I’m waiting for him to tell me something that’s going to blow my mind.
“I think you know,” he murmurs, but there’s still an edge to his words.
But I’m not concerned about his tone right now. Because that bad feeling I couldn’t push away while talking to Shepard comes back in full force. It feels more like an instinct now. A gut feeling.
More solid. More undeniable.
I notice flurries picking up speed from the corner of my eyes as I say, “He said you guys had a fight.”
“We did,” he confirms.
“What did you guys fight about?”
Again, for a few seconds, I hear my loud breaths. But this time, it’s against the backdrop of the wind whipping and howling outside. It’s against the backdrop of this dread in the pit of my stomach.
“I think you know that too.”
And then it feels like everything stops.
My heart, my breaths.
The snow.
The flakes suspend in the air, floating like feathers.
“You think…” I begin with a trembling voice. “I don’t… I don’t belong to you.”
My words sound bizarre to my ears.
They don’t make any sense, except they do.
Because that’s what Shepard said, didn’t he, when we were talking about the fight. He said that he has something that Stellan thinks is his.
Those were his exact words.
Exact.
So if they fought about what I think they fought about—me—then in conclusion, I’m the thing that Stellan thinks belongs to him.
Right?
I know I sound like a crazy person right now, putting things together like a puzzle, but I just… I think I need a minute.
To gather my wits.
To pull myself together.
Because… What?
What the fuck?
“That’s where you’re wrong,” he says again with an edge to his voice.
This time, more pronounced, though.
“What?”
“You do belong to me.”
And then, with his words echoing in my ear, the world begins to move. The breaths slam back into my chest. My heart pitter-patters before pounding. The flakes finally make their way down to the bare branches of the tree I’ve been staring at all through this.
“I… What?” I ask on a whisper.
“Not him,” he whispers too, but again his is edgy, dangerous, full of sharp and icy thorns. “Me.”
“I… I don’t,” I finally manage to say. Finally manage to pull myself together and think. “I don’t even know why you’d think that. I’m with him. I’m—”
“Only because you’re not with me,” he cuts me off.
“But you didn’t want me,” I say, clutching my phone tighter.