Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 75164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75164 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
“Hell, yeah, it is,” Ari muttered from his spot in the back seat. “I’m not into those dirty games the two of you play in the dark, but that comment made me want to whip your ass, Baker. Can we please just talk about me and how this asshole’s arrival is going to potentially ruin my life? Me, me, me,” he teased. “You two need to work on your miscommunications in the privacy of your own home. I need all the focus on me right now.”
I turned around to glare at him. “I know you’re not into all the dirty games Seth and I play in the dark, but I really think somebody needs to whip your ass right now,” I countered. “Could you possibly be any more spoiled? The whole world doesn’t revolve around you, Arizona.” Narrowing my eyes at him, I ordered, “Now…spill the deets. Why do you hate Eli Wallace, also known as Samantha’s step brother, aka asshole, so much?”
Still feeling like a shit, I reached my hand over and looped it around Seth’s. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d shoved it away, but he answered with a reassuring squeeze. I kept our hands locked together.
“Okay,” Ari began. “You guys know that I’m a computer nerd and there’s not a code out there that I can’t write or decipher.”
“Brag much?” I said.
“What you probably don’t know is that I’m not just a computer nerd…there’s a good chance I’m a full-time, twenty-four seven, around-the-clock nerd. I graduated from MIT when I was seventeen years old. When your entire section of the world is much older than you, more mature than you, and more confident than you…well…it leads to ugly situations. People were either mean or treated me like some sort of pet mascot.”
He grew quiet for a few seconds and had a faraway look in his eyes. I hadn’t known Arizona for very long, but I’d never seen him act anything other than happy and well-adjusted. He always smiled and wasn’t stingy with laughs. Looking at him now, his eyes screamed sadness and insecurity.
“Did Eli do something to you, Arizona?” Seth growled. “Was he one of the crowd that mistreated you? Does your father know this?”
He kept firing questions, not giving Ari a chance to answer before barking out another one. It was evident that Seth wasn’t going to have any difficulties in disliking Eli. I didn’t doubt for a second that Seth suspected Samantha had sent Eli to the satellite office to keep an eye on the two of us. He was wrong, though. I think Seth totally misunderstood the type of relationship Samantha and I had. It was nothing like the connection the two of us shared.
“Well, Seth, you remember the night you were whining around about Baker not loving you, Baker leaving you without a goodbye, Baker…blah, blah, blah. You remember that night, right?”
Seth rolled his eyes and I couldn’t help but smile. It wasn’t like it brought me joy to know that Seth had suffered the same way that I had when we’d been apart…but it did make me smile.
“Yeah, I thought you did. Remember me telling you that I’d already been dumped seven times in my life, so you needed to quit whining about the one and only time somebody had left you high, dry, and horny? Well, Eli Wallace was my number seven. Bastard. He broke my heart and walked away with a swagger that screamed, ‘I-don’t-give-a-fuck’.” He unfastened his seat belt and leaned up closer to us. “You just don’t do that to people. It’s wrong. It’s mean. It hurts. So, for that reason, I’m going to beg dad to not hire him, regardless of who he’s related to.”
“Not going to work,” I countered. “He’s the stepbrother to the owner of the company. I doubt Landon will have a choice in the matter.”
“Okay, you’re probably right about that,” Ari conceded. “But, here’s the deal; nobody in this car is going to like him, be polite to him, welcome him to the team, or even talk to him. It’s like a friend code, or something. Pinky swear, guys. I’m not kidding. We are going to smother him with a level of hate that will suffocate him to the point that he runs back to wherever he came from, tail tucked between his legs.”
“I’m in!” Seth answered cheerfully.
While Ari had been preaching his rant, my mind had been working up some basic mathematical calculations. Something wasn’t adding up, and that something was age. Looking back at Ari, I asked, “You met Eli at MIT, right?”
Ari scooted back and buckled his seatbelt again. “I see where you’re going with this and think its best you mind your own business, Baker. You’re starting to step on toes, my toes, and I don’t like it when that happens. Zip it.” For the first time since I’d known him, he looked like the nineteen-year-old he was.