Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
I’m just her boyfriend. She’s just my girlfriend. It makes me feel seventeen again. Before the Marine Corps, before I went to war—back when I’d hang out at the Quickie-Mart with Banks. Smoking cheap cigarettes and drinking slushies.
“I owe you one,” I tell my brother, my phone resting on the floral tile. Near a brass claw-foot tub. I was on a video call, but with bad reception, the screen went black.
“I’ve owed you way more and you never collected.” His voice crackles with static. “We’re always even, you know that.” He curses in Italian.
“What?” I stare hard at the phone, wishing the picture would return.
“I can’t find the fucking car keys.” I imagine him running around the townhouse. It’s late in Philly, and he should be leaving for the Hale’s mansion soon. He’s on night-duty for Xander.
“Check your pockets.” I gently comb Jane’s hair back, and she blows out a controlled breath.
“Nothing there.”
If I cemented shoes to his feet, Banks would still find a way to lose them. “I have a spare set in Jane’s nightstand.”
“Thanks, Cinderella.”
I almost roll my eyes. “You still have my cornic’?” I gave him my gold necklace before I left.
The line deadens.
“Banks?”
“Yeah. It’s around my neck.”
Jane sits up a bit in slight alarm. “Is your brother…?”
“He’s okay.” I take off the washcloth and study her glazed eyes.
“Hey, Jane,” Banks says. “You feelin’ any better?”
“I suppose…a little.” She presses her fingers to her lips. “I think I’m going to…?”
I guide Jane back to the toilet, running my hand up and down her back while she dry heaves.
Banks tells me, “I talked to ma on the phone. She called your number.” Static breaks apart my brother’s voice. “She could tell I wasn’t you within the first three seconds.”
My lip rises. “What’d she say?” I’m assuming he explained the twin switch.
“She said, you’re a buncha dumbasses, but I love you both the most.”
I laugh, and the sound pulls Jane’s attention onto me. She smiles through the queasy-drunk-feeling. And very definitively, she says, “I love your mom.” The words almost slur together.
“Yeah?”
“Mmhmm.” She nods.
I don’t say much else to Banks before we lose service completely, but I warned him it’d probably happen.
After a few minutes, Jane stops dry heaving and breathes easier, and while she leans into my chest, I unlace her heeled fuzzy boots.
She attempts to undress. “I’m…stuck,” she mumbles, her elbows jammed into the fabric of her blouse.
I tug the thing off her head, my mouth curved up in a permanent smile. “How’s that?”
“Mmmmhmm.” She smooths her lips, staring up at me like I’m a midnight snack. “You were twenty-two…when I met you.”
I hold her gaze and pull off her right boot. “I was.”
“I’m seventeen.”
My mouth hikes in a larger smile. Clearly, she means she was seventeen back then, but she’s too drunk to catch the slip. “You were,” I nod and remove her left boot, setting both aside.
“What did you think?” Jane whispers.
My brows draw together. “What do you mean?”
She shivers, the house chilly but I run hot. And she’s only in a blue bra and a skirt that she slowly tries to crawl out of. I help her pull the tutu down her hips and legs, and then I hoist my girlfriend up in my arms.
Cradling Jane, I walk back into the cold bedroom.
She hangs onto my neck and cuddles up against my body. “I mean,” she says slowly, “what was your first impression of me? Whatwereyouthinking?” The last part slurs together, but I pick apart her question: what were you thinking?
I stare at her in my arms with her freckled cheeks and curious eyes, and I can almost see her six years ago.
Just seventeen.
How she’d been at the Hale house on my first day meeting Xander, and she ran hurriedly into the living room, frizzed hair stuck to her lips, out of breath, and mind racing faster than her feet would move. Confidence boosted this girl a million feet high.
She was trying to wrangle her cat on a leash to leave. I was trying not to stare too intensely.
“I thought you were smarter than me,” I say deeply, carrying her to bed.
She blushes, trying to suppress a smile. “How so?”
“You knew words I didn’t.” I can’t remember the exact word. It’s been too long, and she mulls this over while I gently place her on a twin bed.
I sift through her suitcase and find her favorite flannel pajamas, and I amble over, my knee on the mattress. Easily, I slide her legs into the pants and then arms into the top. She does her best to help, but she whacks herself in the face.
“I have you,” I whisper.
She lets me dress her, and when she’s warm and clothed, she plops back down with a content smile.
Before I pull up the covers, she rolls over and clutches my leg. “Stay.” Her body shakes as a chill ripples through the room.