Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 75640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 303(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Fucking. Hawaii.
And family?
Okay.
Yeah.
I have one.
One that keeps growing and growing and growing no thanks to me.
Dating is hard enough for the majority of people already, but when you have a condition that makes it difficult to do things in public or complicates your ability to even meet new people the shit becomes practically inconceivable.
Although…I guess…being “Cupid’s Chokehold” crazy about your best friend probably also doesn’t help.
Maybe I should just find something insane and totally out of character to do so there’s at least one gasp worthy moment in my “movie” besides being attacked from behind by a man the love of my life evidently left for dead after he interrogated him.
I wonder what that style was like.
Was it more Jason Bourne or more The Gray Man?
My phone dings just as my door is slamming shut.
T: Hilly LOVES the bubbles and brew evites you sent out.
T: She LOVES that it’ll be at Monte’s.
T: See. I knew you were the woman for the job.
Smiling absentmindedly occurs until Slater grunts, “Work again?”
The pale, almost lifeless blue lettering falling in my lap prompts my gaze to meet his. “No. It’s T.”
Immediate ease floods his expression and pushes me to keep talking.
“Hilda really likes the evites I sent yesterday, which is a huge relief because I swore, she would hate them.”
“You mean like she did with your menu?”
“My first four menus!” I squawk while buckling myself in. “Four, Slater.”
He lightly chortles and does the same. “I could’ve told you she wasn’t gonna go for somethin’ messy like BBQ.”
“Okay, but what was wrong with fajitas?!”
“Still messy.” Mirth revives the color in his speech as he starts the ignition. “Especially when you’re eatin’ them.”
“I…I…” my head bobbles around in a disagreeing nature only to be saved by the ding of my device. “Need to check that.”
Ignoring the huff that precedes his question is impossible. “Is that work again?”
Morris: Do me a solid, little sis. Keep track of how many hot single friends she has RSVP.
Rather than address my older brother’s sleaziness, I do what I probably should’ve done earlier and face the couple fight – we probably shouldn’t even be having since we’re not an actual couple – head on. “Do you mean is it Harv texting me again?”
Another grumble of disapproval is delivered upon him backing out of his parking space to head for the main exit.
“Do you mean is it Harv making me smile?”
The accusation seems to further agitate him by the way his thick neck tenses.
“Do you mean is it Harv that’s trying to stay on my mind?”
“Blu said traffic was slow during his sweep,” Slater grumbles under his breath, purposely avoiding my allegations. “This is not slow.”
“Why don’t you just ask those things?”
He continues to watch the road in silence.
“Why don’t you just ask what you actually wanna know?”
The first opening my best friend can take, he does.
“Why don’t you just ask me what you really wanna ask me instead of ignoring me all over again like you did at breakfast?!”
“Why. Him!?” Both his volume and wording are suffocatingly large. “Why him, Arley!?”
Bafflement has me barely able to fumble out, “W-w-what?”
“Why. Him?” Red letters fly around the front seat, bashing and burning and bruising every inch of me they touch. “Out of all of the men on the goddamn planet, why Seventeen? Why my fucking boss?!”
“First off, he’s our boss,” I chomp prior to angling my back to rest against the door rather than the seat, “and second of all, he wasn’t anyone’s boss when we started dating!” A momentary face scrunch of contemplation is wedged between statements. “Okay, he was someone’s boss, but not mine. And not yours because you didn’t work there. And most importantly, he didn’t have a number yet, so he was just…Harv.”
“Forfucksake, please stop callin’ him that.”
“Harvey.” Sighing in exasperation is a thoughtless action. “And to answer your question, I went out with him because he fucking asked, Slater.”
The vicious bite of my best friend’s name catches him so off guard he damn near slams into the vehicle we’re following onto the highway.
“I know. Not the most novel of concepts to a serial dater like you-”
“Ouch.”
“-but to someone like me, someone guys give awkward hugs to and sympathetic smiles the second they find out I see shit that isn’t actually there, it was refreshing to be fucking wanted.”
Slater’s tone suddenly softens, “You deserve to feel wanted, Arley.”
“Yeah, well, that’s also a novel concept in my life.”
“It shouldn’t be, Angel Cake.” His declaration is followed by his hand unexpectedly falling to rest on top of mine.
“What is and what should be aren’t two things that always match up outside of assignments,” I warmly tease as I allow our fingers to fold together.
Merging lanes keeps him looking elsewhere during his additional questioning, “Why’d you break up with him?” Despite my own volition, a shit eating grin stretches across my face from cheek to cheek, an expression that Slater manages to catch out of the corner of his eye. “Why are you smilin’?”