Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75424 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75424 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 377(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Read Online Books/Novels: | (V-Card Diaries #1) Scored |
|---|---|
Author/Writer of Book/Novel: | Lili Valente |
| Language: | English |
| Book Information: | |
Begging my brother’s best friend—aka NHL superstar, Ian Fox—to help me ditch my V Card wasn’t part of my “make it big in NYC” plans. But after years of being “cute little Evie,” I’m tired of waiting for Mr. Right. I’m ready for Mr. Right Now and Ian is everything I’ve ever wanted in a first time. He’s kind, funny, confident, and has a legendary…stick. Seriously, his stick has its own page of search results, complete with gray sweatpants shots hot enough to make even a clueless virgin drool. And yes, my brother will murder us if he finds out, but we’re both grownups. We can keep a secret. We have to since I just landed an art therapy job working with his troubled team. All we’re doing is a little practice. (Or…ehem...big practice.) Too bad my heart didn’t get the memo. | |
| Books in Series: | V-Card Diaries Series by Lili Valente |
| Books by Author: | Lili Valente |
Prologue
DEAR DIARY
Evie
* * *
Dear Diary,
* * *
Three months! Just three months until I’m a twenty-four-year-old virgin. As if being a twenty-three-year-old virgin isn’t bad enough. At this point, I only have sixteen years until I’m old enough to be the star of a HYSTERICAL romantic comedy about having the oldest V-Card on the planet.
And sure, sixteen years is a long time, but look how fast the past sixteen years have zipped by. It seems like just YESTERDAY I was turning eight years old. Maybe the day before yesterday, but you get it.
I can still remember the smell of the scented markers I got for my birthday and how Dad freaked out when I gave myself “tattoos” all over my face with them.
Ugh, I wish I had a pack of scented markers right now. Cam is experimenting with collard greens in the kitchen. The entire apartment smells like death, covered in lemon juice and the bitter zest of dying dreams.
I know, I’m being dramatic.
I’m just so tired of being overlooked, ignored, or passed by for someone with a better sex vibe. Or…any sex vibe.
Maybe Vince was right. Maybe I’m about as sexy as a lump of cold mashed potatoes, covered in collard green slime.
If so, I’m not sure what to do about it. How does one develop a sex vibe, Diary, and do high heels have to be involved? Like so many things that are supposed to make you beautiful and attractive to the opposite sex, heels just…hurt.
Am I crazy to think that beauty and sex-vibing shouldn’t have to hurt?
Yes?
No?
Heavy sigh…
I continue to be disappointed with your lack of answers, Diary.
Please remember to hurl yourself into a fire if I meet an untimely end, okay? I don’t want my legacy to be a journal filled with whining about my hymen. Ha! We should write a song—“Whinin’ ’Bout my Hymen.” Or YOU should write it. I’m a visual artist, not a musical one.
So, get on that, okay? If you’re not going to answer questions, you can at least spend your free time wisely.
* * *
Virginally Yours,
Evie
Chapter One
Evie Eleanor Olsen
* * *
A (nearly) twenty-four-year-old virgin
about to be disemboweled by a colored pencil
* * *
This is it, I guess.
This is how I die.
I always hoped I’d die in bed, surrounded by loving children and grandchildren—or at the very least that there wouldn’t be large amounts of blood involved—but you don’t always get what you want.
I learned that a long time ago.
Around age eight, in fact, when my mother left.
Dad had no idea what to do with a girl (and made zero effort to learn). My much-older brother, Derrick, attempted to make up for our father’s lack of interest by becoming the kind of hyper-protective big bro my girlfriends thought was the swooniest thing ever, but that secretly drove me insane. Derrick was always in my business, from bullying me into eating healthy foods instead of Pop-Tarts, to cleaning my room, to questioning my love of bug-themed school projects and my preference for spending time with art supplies over most people.
But if I had to guess, I’d bet my brother’s constant hovering is part of the reason I became an artist in the first place.
When I was lost in my art, I forgot that my brother cared too much, and my father cared too little. With a paintbrush in my hand, layering washes of watercolor to create the perfect fall maple leaf, I didn’t feel anxious or worried or not good enough.
I felt like I was where I belonged, doing exactly what I was supposed to do, and that I had everything I needed to make my dreams come true tucked away inside my own creation-loving soul.
I was hoping to cultivate some of that same calm, steady confidence within the twenty-seven professional hockey players glaring at me from the card tables set up in the old equipment room the New York City Ice Possums’ management appropriated for my two weeks of art therapy class. I thought the guys would be excited for a break from murdering each other on the ice, brutalizing their bodies in the weight room, and talking about feelings with the group therapist brought in to help defuse the Possums’ pervasive attitude problems before the preseason.
After all, I’m not asking anyone to talk about their feelings. I’m asking them to draw them, using shiny new pastel crayons and high-quality colored pencils.
Colored pencils like the pink one currently aimed at the center of my chest, held by the agitated goalie towering over me in my slip-on Vans, making me wish I’d worn my tennis shoes with the platform soles.
At five foot two, I’m never the tallest person in the room, but I’m feeling especially wee today, surrounded by enormous men with bruises all over their arms from scrapping on the ice and a collective bad attitude so intense it felt like I was wading through a swamp of icky vibes as I handed out their “anger iceberg” drawing templates at the beginning of the session.