Total pages in book: 206
Estimated words: 192184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 961(@200wpm)___ 769(@250wpm)___ 641(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 192184 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 961(@200wpm)___ 769(@250wpm)___ 641(@300wpm)
I played Miss Pacman on the arcade machine in the basement, determined to beat Dario’s #1 spot high score. In a few days I was at the #2 spot and I wasn’t giving up. I put “TiaTyson” as my name on it.
I’d had two conversations on the phone. One was with Lisa about wedding plan ideas, and an upcoming baby shower for Luciana. I told her I’d come over and meet with her and the sisters and we could make plans. She told me they were all happy to help so I said I’d talk to Tommy about dinner on the upcoming Sunday and then we’d sit down and go over things. The second phone conversation was with my best friend Ruby.
I’d brought it up to Tommy after afternoon sex when we were all cuddled up afterwards. I nervously told him I needed to talk to her, to put her mind at ease because she’d just been wondering about me for all this time, and because I’d promised Rose that I’d call her. By not calling I’d be leaving them wondering and worrying about me.
He said it was fine, but that I had to remember that any call could be being recorded and that I had to be very careful of what I said. I assured him it’d be fine to talk to Ruby and that I understood. When he left the room I braced myself with a deep breath and dialed her cell.
First, she was pissed at me. I’d just disappeared for weeks and she’d only heard that I’d run off with a guy. Her parents had evidently protected her from their suspicions even in the beginning when they were involving police and my social worker.
I was easily able to sell her on this being a case of a whirlwind romance, especially with the way I’d been obsessing about ‘ice cream parlor hottie’ before grad. The guy from the ice cream parlor had swept me off my feet and we’d moved in together. She was a romantic at heart and so it wasn’t at all hard to convince her that this was just all that’d happened. She was mad at me but said she’d seen how gorgeous he was when he picked me up from the post-grad party in that convertible. When she asked why I was all upset at the house after grad and why I’d disappeared like that I said, “Let’s just say my father did something to seriously disappoint me.” She’d replied with a knowing, “Enough said.”
Hallelujah.
I told mostly the truth, or at least selective parts of it, about how Tommy had come in and flirted with me (which she’d already known), I stretched the truth a bit by saying he found out our parents knew one another so had my Dad arrange for us to meet. I told her he’d wined and dined me, taken me on a vacation, that we’d had sunset beach walks, made love in a hayloft when he proposed, told her that I knew when my dream wedding dance song came on and that he’d picked that moment with the fireflies and the stars in the sky to ask me to marry him that I didn’t need to wait to get to know him better, that everything he was in that moment was just what I wanted in a husband.
I told her he was protective, fiercely protective, that he was strong, that he was smart and funny, and that sometimes he could be so sweet that it made my heart melt. I also told her a little about the panty-melting sex. That it was hot, not what it entailed. She practically swooned over the phone when I told her he’d repeatedly made me come hard, not once, but two and three times per sex session.
I told her I was getting married in a few weeks and that of course she needed to be my maid of honor. She was sort of awestruck and didn’t ask me a lot of questions. She gave me shit about not calling a few times during the conversation, but I just kept saying it had to do with shit about my dad that I couldn’t talk about and then she’d say “Enough said” and let me off the hook.
If it’d been Beth or Mia, I know I’d never have gotten away with it. Mia wanted to be a journalist and Beth wanted to go into law. They’d be tag-team interrogating me, trying to understand why I just disappeared, why all the plans were suddenly out the window for a guy I’d just met. But Ruby wasn’t a skeptic; in fact, she was a lot like a Disney princess who was listening to me and envisioning the day her prince would come. I cut her short when she told me that Mia was there and wanted her to pass the phone and said I’d call back later.