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)
“No, really,” I tell him. “I had help. Everyone chipped in. Everyone—”
“Fuck everyone.”
I rub my thumb over the crest of his cheekbone. “You helped me.”
“Fuck me too.”
“You helped me run lines,” I swallow, blushing. “You practiced with me.”
In the beginning when we’d started, I was shy. Even though I wanted to share a piece of myself with him, I still felt some reluctance. This play, this role is so very close to my heart. But he was patient and nonjudgmental. He was encouraging even.
Not in a gushing way; of course not.
It’s so very rare for him to use more than two sentences together—well, except when he talks about his books, but still—but in the way he looked at me through the screen. How his eyes lit up when I’d deliver a line and how he kept taking longer pauses between the cues, so he could stare at me.
It made my heart race. It made my breaths flutter too.
And when I went to sleep, I dreamed about him. Not that I already don’t, but last night, it was so vivid. So real.
So wonderful and so painful.
That I decided to put it out of my mind. I decided to put him out of my mind.
But he’s here now.
He came to see my play. He flew in early to come see me.
He took the night off to come see me.
“Maybe,” he rasps, his eyes roving over my features, breaking into my thoughts, “but I wasn’t the one making magic on the stage.”
There are flowers in my heart. “You think I made magic?”
“I think that’s the least of what you did, but yeah.”
I smile. “That’s it. That’s the word.”
“Yeah?”
“Magic.”
“You like that?”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t think that’s correct either.”
“But—”
“Fire. Glorious, bright, hot. You were fire.”
“Fire,” I whisper.
“The kind that can melt the Arctic. The snow outside.”
“You?”
“Me.”
The way he says it, with a smoky voice and a heavy-lidded look, makes me swallow. It makes me blurt out, “I’m not going to sleep with you.”
“No?”
“No.”
Something flickers in his eyes, all over his features first. “Okay.”
I dig the pads of my fingers on his face. “No, seriously. I won’t sleep with you. I’m serious, Stellan.”
“I can see that.”
“I won’t…” My breaths are choppy as I take in his calm expression. “He does my homework.”
An indulgent look enters his eyes; that’s the only way to describe how he’s looking at me. With a… fond sort of expression. It makes me feel so young, as young as he says. Younger than his baby sister.
“Yeah?” he rasps.
Despite the blush that steals over my cheeks, my entire body, I go on. “Yes. He… He thinks that I should focus on my passion. On the things I like rather than stupid books and stuff. So he helps me. Even though he doesn’t like books himself, he does my homework, Stellan.”
For some reason, he’s not getting the urgency in my tone. Because he still appears unfazed and fond. “As he should.”
“Do you remember the old coach?”
“Yeah.”
“He had him fired. I saw the news. He”—I take a breath, trying to calm down my heart because he did do that—“said he would and—”
“And what?”
“And he did it. For me.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “Yes. Because I told him he creeped me out and—”
“Well, he did the right thing.”
And just because he’s so calm about all of this, I grab his suit jacket with my other hand and try to explain it to him. “And he listens to me, okay? I tell him about my day. About practice and the play and all my dreams and… He listens. It’s important to me. And he…” I pause to pace my breaths once again. “He texted all the girls. He asked them to come over. Because he knew I’d be alone tonight. He knew my biji wouldn’t be able to attend. My parents would attend my play over my dead body. He knew how much that bothered me so… He knew.”
But the thing is that he knew as well.
This man in front of me, who flew in early, just so he could watch me.
And so when all my friends had shown up, at first I thought it was because of him. I thought Stellan had texted them. And God, in my twisted mind, I still hope that it was Stellan somehow. That everything he said last night, all the bullshit he spewed about the phone, was somehow true and he invited everyone because he knew how lonely I was.
“I’m not an expert, but that’s what a boyfriend is supposed to do, isn’t it?” he murmurs, his eyes so pretty in this moment. “Make sure his girl doesn’t get lonely.”
“Yes.”
“Well, then I’m glad he’s taking his duties seriously.”
Disappointment sags my shoulders then. Of course it was Shepard, my boyfriend. The best boyfriend in the world. Not his twin brother.
I don’t know why my mind is so messed up when it comes to him.