Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 90503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
What was the right thing to do?
If only—
The door from the stairwell opened, and we moved apart.
Five
Maren
The server, whose name was Jason, pulled out my chair, and I sat down across from Dallas. Then I listened to Jason go over the menu, but he might as well have been speaking another language. I didn’t comprehend one word he said.
My heart was still hammering—Dallas and I had almost kissed. And I’d wanted to. Like really, really wanted to. I thought he’d wanted it too, but we’d been interrupted before I could tell for sure.
Was the thing between us back? Or was I imagining it?
Maybe this whole “old times’ sake” business was getting to me. But it sure did feel nice.
“Maren?” Dallas’s voice pulled me into the moment. “Something to drink?”
“Oh. A glass of wine, please.” I looked up at Jason. “A sauvignon blanc maybe?”
He nodded. “Absolutely. One sauvignon blanc and one old fashioned. I’ll be right back, and I apologize that service might be a little bit slower than usual tonight. We’re quite a ways from the kitchen and bar.”
“That’s okay,” said Dallas. “We’re not in a rush.”
“Very good.” Jason headed for the stairwell door, leaving us alone again.
“Good thing he’s young and looks in good shape. He’s going to be up and down the stairs all night.” Dallas picked up his water and took a sip.
I shook my head. “I still can’t wrap my brain around this.”
He shrugged and sat back in his chair, looking smug and mischievous and way too handsome. “Don’t think. Just enjoy yourself. Pretend you’re in high school.”
“This totally reminds me of something you would have pulled back then.”
He laughed. “You’re right. Although this is more romantic than the pigs.”
I groaned. At the beginning of our senior year, Dallas and his football buddies had been suspended for letting three pigs loose in the halls at school. They’d spray-painted numbers on the pigs: one, two, and four. It had taken hours for school officials to realize there were only three pigs. “Where did you guys even get those pigs?”
Dallas shook his head. “I don’t remember. I think someone’s uncle had a farm? God, that was hilarious.”
“Poor little piggies. I felt sorry for them, being painted-on and then chased all around school.”
“It was non-toxic paint. I promise you, no pigs or humans were harmed in that prank.”
“Unlike the Slip’N Slide episode at the end of junior year.” In order to “claim” the senior hallway as their own, Dallas and his friends had turned it into a giant Slip’N Slide.
The crooked grin broke out on his face. “Oh yeah, Hagerman broke his nose, that asshole. It was his own fault. No one told him to dive face first toward the lockers. He overshot the tarp by a mile.”
“And how about parking your car in the school courtyard?”
He held up one finger. “That was in protest over them denying us parking passes senior year. It was us exercising our right to free speech.”
I rolled my eyes. “They denied you parking passes because of all the shit you guys had pulled the year before.”
“Whatever, that one wasn’t even my idea, but I got all the blame for it.”
“Because it was your car! I told you that you were going to get blamed for it.”
“I know. Holy fuck, you were mad about that.” He was laughing again. “You didn’t have sex with me for a week.”
“I didn’t talk to you for a week.”
He cocked his head. “You didn’t?” But his foot nudged mine under the table, so I knew he was joking.
I leaned my elbows on the table. “And then, of course, there was the letter.”
He sighed, the smile sliding off his face. “Yeah, I know.”
Shortly after the parking incident, Dallas and his friends had written a letter on school letterhead from the principal to all the new freshmen that the school was implementing mandatory “penis inspections.” While several senior guys had been behind the prank, Dallas had taken full blame for the idea and its execution, resulting in a long-term suspension, which his parents viewed as the final straw. They sent him to boarding school right before our one-year anniversary.
But of course, I hadn’t realized that until after he was gone.
“What can I say?” he asked. “It seemed funny at the time.”
“It was kind of funny,” I admitted. “But you had promised me you weren’t going to get in any more trouble.”
“Did I promise that?”
“Among other things.”
Dallas looked at me like he had something more to say, but a second later Jason came through the door with a tray carrying our drinks. He set them down and asked if we were ready to order, and I had to admit I hadn’t even looked at the menu yet.
“Just give me a minute,” I said, opening it up and scanning it quickly for something I’d like. Only the steaks had descriptions that included the name of the farm where they came from, but I wasn’t sure I felt like steak tonight. I bit my bottom lip as I read through the entrees, wondering if the rest of their meat was organic.