Total pages in book: 22
Estimated words: 20065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 20065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 100(@200wpm)___ 80(@250wpm)___ 67(@300wpm)
“It must be nice,” she sighs dramatically, tilting her head up to the sky. “Don’t you think? Having that kind of bond with the person you love? Knowing that you’ll love them and they’ll love you forever?”
Delilah has been bringing this up for about two months now, which is crazy considering we’ve only been going out for five.
The first time she did it, she slipped it into the conversation with a bit more stealth and a little more tact. But now it’s almost weekly I get some kind of reminder that she’s waiting for me to propose. Not exactly the most romantic relationship in the world, but then again the relationship between Delilah and I has never been what I’d define as romantic. Can an arranged relationship be romantic?
Her father, Clint, is a hard ass drug dealer that controls Tangerine Forks as well as all the towns within a ten mile radius. Everyone knows him and I’ve seen what happens to men who go up against him, so when he came to me at the shop one day and told me that his daughter had a crush on me and wanted me to be her boyfriend, there really wasn’t any saying no on my end.
“Now, you make her happy,” he told me. “Or you won’t be happy with what I do to you.”
So, knowing I had no choice in the matter, I asked Delilah out and put on as much charm as I could muster. To this day I’m still not sure if she even knows how just how much of a hand her father had in getting us together. Part of me suspects she does, but as long as she gets what she wants, she just doesn’t care.
Our relationship has always been dull and grey for me, like flavorless food or music played through headphones sitting on a table far away.
After months with Yara, I settled into the fact that this was my life and I would never find love. But then today when I rescued Yara from those three men and took her into my arms, I felt a spark inside me that I thought I’d never feel again.
And it’s not just her looks either…her flowing, dirty blond hair, her sea-green eyes or her tits that belong on the chest of a fertility goddess. No, it’s more than that. It’s the way she made me feel when I first set eyes on her. Like something inside me had suddenly been unlocked by her gaze. What something? I couldn’t say. But whatever it was, the town of Tangerine Forks feels a whole lot bigger now with her in it.
A whistle jolts my senses, and I blink to see Delilah gawking at me. “Hello? Lyle? Are you with me?”
Yes, unfortunately…
I realize this whole time I’ve been thinking of Yara I’ve been staring vacantly off into space like an idiot, probably completely missing out on whatever it was Delilah just said to me.
“Huh? Sorry,” I reply. “I was…thinking about something.”
“Thinking about something?” she snorts. “Thinking about what?”
Now for whatever reason, I cannot lie to Delilah. Maybe Clint taught her some kind of incredible perceptive abilities or something when she really young. It’s like if I was to try and bluff her in poker, she would win every single time. So, I either come clean and tell her the truth right now, which will result in her going to her father and me ending up with several broken bones, or I tell her another truth right now that will satisfy her. And I have about two seconds to come up with one.
“Well, I saved this girl today from being assaulted by three guys in a pickup truck.”
Delilah’s jaw drops, and her eyes go wide as dinner plates. “What!?” That worked. “You did what?”
“Yeah, I was coming home from the shop, and I saw this truck pulled over and these guys…”
I proceed to explain the whole story to her, leaving out key elements like Yara’s name, my insane attraction to her, and the fact that at the end I brought her home and put her up in our studio apartment. Because after all, leaving out some of the truth isn’t lying, and I’m still able to pull that off.
Once I’m finished, Yara is just staring at me. I already know what’s coming next.
“Are you kidding me, Lyle!? You could have been killed!” I don’t know where Delilah got the idea that she could speak to men this way, but it must have been from being raised by Clint who she knows would always step in to protect her if anything ever happened to her.
“Well, I wasn’t,” I reply, biting the inside of my cheek.
“You did all this for some girl you don’t even know? What if those guys had guns? You could have gotten your head blown off!”