Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 158848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 794(@200wpm)___ 635(@250wpm)___ 529(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 158848 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 794(@200wpm)___ 635(@250wpm)___ 529(@300wpm)
“Why would he care?” Hayden asks. “Isn’t he like eighty?”
Darcy shakes her head. “He’s like thirty something.”
Hayden shrugs. “Old dudes don’t interest me.”
“Shelby’s on his record label now,” Kyla answers, ignoring them. “Told them he had better lawyers.”
“Who knew you cared this much about country music,” Hayden mutters while scrolling through her phone.
“I read everything Sippin’ on Secrets posts about everyone.” Kyla lifts her chin, not embarrassed.
“Please, she stalks their IG so much, they blocked her.” Darcy giggles and shoves Kyla.
“They did not.”
“How is any of this helpful?” I ask, poking my fork into my pancake.
“Ah-ha!” Hayden lifts her hand in the air to get our attention even though we’re all less than three feet away from her. “That Sidespeed Salmon Productions or whatever company that produced Griff’s show, also produced Matchmaker Mansion. I knew I’d seen that big tacky house before. It was decorated totally different inside but the pool, two gyms, the sauna, it all looked familiar.”
“No way.” Darcy grabs Hayden’s phone and stares at the screen.
“So what?” I swivel on the stool and cross my arms over my chest. “Who cares?”
“They’re devious. They’ve been sued a bunch of times by former contestants.” Hayden holds out her phone to me, but I shake my head.
Who gives a pickle about lawsuits? “Are there more pancakes?” I ask Kyla, lifting my chin at the stove.
“Wait.” Jenn holds up both hands. “Molly, you said you watched the show again. What do you think?”
“Nothing.” I shrug. “I’m probably just…seeing what I want to see.”
Hayden’s busy on her phone again.
“Molly. You are killing me.” Kyla wraps one of her hands around her throat. “Killing. Me.”
“Knock it off, drama queen.” I grab my plate and hold it out to her. “And give me another pancake.”
She shakes with laughter as she returns to the stove and slides her spatula under a fresh pancake—with no burned bits.
After she sets it on my plate, I say, “Remember the first episode where they made fun of Griff for putting the picture of us on his nightstand?”
Kyla rolls her eyes. “Yeah.”
“I don’t know if they were making fun of it,” Darcy argues. “I thought it was more like they were highlighting how genuine and wholesome Griff is…er, was.”
I let out a sad snort-laugh. “Sure, whatever. Anyway.” I circle my hand in front of my chest as if that will help unroll the words from my mouth. “When I watched that part again…” I swallow down the sourness crawling up my throat. “I noticed the picture isn’t on the nightstand.”
Kyla’s eyes widen. “Noooo. Really? How’d we miss that?”
“Because we were all staring at the couple in the bed?” Darcy swivels her hips in a circle. “Making it rain in fuck town.”
She’s so ridiculous, a giggle-snort bursts out of me.
“And listening to the announcer guy,” Hayden adds. “She’s right, look.” Hayden holds out her phone to Darcy, then Kyla.
The girls all crowd around Hayden to squint at her phone. I stay right where I am. I’ve studied the footage on a much bigger screen and still don’t know what to think. Of course I want to believe he didn’t cheat on me. But I don’t want to be the oblivious girl who follows her heart and ignores her brain.
“He could’ve just put it away out of guilt,” Darcy suggests.
A few folks on Reddit would agree.
“Maybe,” Hayden mutters, staring at the screen. “Damn, we need like a computer forensics team to clean up this footage for us.”
Something about that is so absurd, uncontrollable laughter bursts out of me.
“You know, the fact that the film quality is so bad and that they never really showed Griff and Kiki together again, points to it not being true,” Jenn says.
“Are you sure you want to go to school for cosmetology?” Hayden pats her cousin’s head. “You sound like a defense lawyer.”
“Wait.” I focus my attention on Jenn. “Back up. You kept watching the show too?” I shoot a dirty look at Darcy who gave me weekly updates right until I left for college.
“Hell yeah we did,” Darcy says. “That guy Woolly is hot as fuck.”
“I’d let him ground and pound me any day.” Hayden lets out a shrill whistle and claps her hands.
“Traitors.” I cross my arms over my chest again.
“I did not partake in any more viewings,” Kyla says, slipping an arm around my waist.
“Thanks.” I rest my head on her shoulder.
“Well, Griff made it to the end,” Darcy says.
“Obviously, since he just got home,” I mutter.
“Yeah, but they haven’t shown the last episode yet,” Darcy says. “Rumor is someone got injured.”
Griff had looked pretty bad last night once I really took him in.
Nope. I don’t care if he won the show or not. If I never hear about Supreme Underground Fighter ever again, it’ll be way too soon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Griff
Still reeling from seeing Molly and Torch together, I take Remy up on his offer to move into his basement apartment. At least this way, I’ll get to see her whenever she comes home.