Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 100628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100628 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 503(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 335(@300wpm)
“No!” I practically shouted, my eyes wide with horror.
Pop burst out laughing, his eyes crinkling at the corners. “Okay.”
“You’re so embarrassing,” I muttered, stomping toward the car. “I’m not four. I don’t want you to set up a playdate.”
“I’m not settin’ up any kind of dates for you,” he said sternly.
“Pop,” I ground out in warning.
“He’s a cute kid,” Nana teased. “You know I like long hair.”
“Oh my god,” I hissed, quickly climbing into the car. “Stop it.”
It took a few minutes for Pop to get Bird settled into his seat and I stared at the dashboard the entire time, praying that Rumi hadn’t heard them. It was embarrassing enough that he’d found me sitting all by myself watching my little brother like a loser. It would be beyond horrifying if he thought I liked him. I was busy glaring at my dirty toes and falling apart flip-flops when a pair of hands smacked down on the door beside me.
“Hey,” Rumi said, leaning in the window to look at Nana. “Can I go to the river with you guys?”
Nana looked at me, her eyes twinkling. I glared back, begging her silently not to embarrass me.
“It’s fine with me,” she said easily. “You gotta ask Samson, though.”
I whipped off my seat belt and hung out the window, staring at Pop as Rumi went to talk to him, waiting for the inevitable wink or nudge or something equally horrifying to happen. Seconds later, I scrambled back inside as Rumi jogged back to our car and climbed into the seat behind me.
“He said it was cool,” he told Nana as he closed the door. “He’ll drop me off at home later.”
“Alright then,” Nana said happily, starting the car.
A million things ran through my head as she backed out of the parking space. It was one thing to chat with someone you figured you wouldn’t see again, but now he was here, in our car, going with us to the freaking river. He’d just invited himself like it was no big deal! I wished I had that kind of confidence. I wanted to look back at him and say something cool and funny and awesome, but my mind was completely blank.
I jerked as his hands settled on my shoulders and squeezed. “Hell, yeah,” he whispered excitedly in my ear. “River!”
Rumi invited himself over to hang out every day for a week. The week after that, we started actually inviting him. By the third week, we just kind of assumed that he’d show up at some point. He became my best friend. If he sometimes looked at me in a certain way that gave me the roller coaster feeling or accidentally brushed up against me, making my skin tingle or said something that made me blush beet red, well, I just ignored it. He became too important. Two truths guided our relationship—boyfriends always left, but best friends didn’t… and I was irrevocably in love with Rumi Hawthorne.
Chapter 1
Rumi
I’d like to say that alcohol had clouded my judgment, or weed had made me a bit too hazy, or use literally any other excuse as to why I’d royally fucked up and slept with my best friend—but I’d be lying. As I pretended to sleep, my face half buried in a pillow and my ass hanging in the breeze, I could hear her quietly searching for her clothes.
I was pretty sure she wasn’t going to find her bra. I could feel the underwire wedged between my thigh and the mattress. The nice thing to do was put her out of her misery and hand the stupid thing to her—but that wasn’t going to happen. If I tried that, she’d know I was awake. She’d look at me with those big blue eyes and I’d know everything she was feeling. The embarrassment. The remorse.
I didn’t want to know. And yeah, maybe that made me a coward, but I didn’t fucking care. My head was throbbing and my guts felt like they were going to turn inside out at any minute, and I really, really didn’t want to have any kind of awkward discussion with Nova about what we’d done. After years of ignoring the spark between us, I’d gone and stuck my dick in her and now everything was going to be shitty and weird, and I only had myself to blame.
“Jesus,” Nova muttered, her voice getting closer. Without any warning, her hand slid between my hip and the bed.
“What the—” I yelped, realizing a second too late that I was supposed to be sleeping. I belatedly rubbed at my face and looked at her blearily. She was already dressed in her jeans and tank top. “Nova?”
“You could’ve told me you were laying on my bra,” she griped, pulling it from beneath me.
“What?” I was still trying to play it off, but she saw right through me.