Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 87181 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 87181 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 436(@200wpm)___ 349(@250wpm)___ 291(@300wpm)
I didn’t have a reason to hate him, but I did.
Whose idea was it for her to go out with him, anyway?
Oh. It was mine.
Idiot.
Maybe Mano was right in some twisted way. Trust me, I’d never tell him that, but perhaps a small, tiny, minuscule part of me had developed a feeling or two for Holly. I couldn’t blame myself. The more she was around me, the more I missed her when she left. Her freaking witch’s wart, beautiful smile, breathtaking eyes, and…
It didn’t matter.
It was just a stupid, small, tiny, minuscule crush—nothing more, nothing less. With time, it would dissipate, and hopefully, once Holly got into an official relationship, I’d see less and less of her. Because my biggest fear was that those feelings for her would only grow if she stuck around me. The last thing I needed was to fall for a woman who was falling for another man.
Besides, I wouldn’t have been any good for her. I didn’t fall in love anymore. I knew with love came heartbreak. I was almost 99.9 percent sure that love was never worth the breaks it could cause in a person. I’d worked hard to make my heart stone cold. The last thing I needed was for Holly to defrost it.
The only problem I had with keeping some distance between Holly and me was that Mano was on a mission to put us in the same spaces now and again.
Holly was becoming a regular at Mano’s—where everyone knew her name, Cheers style—and I didn’t hate that. Whenever she walked in, my whole body would react to seeing her. It was as if I didn’t know how to calm the emotions shooting through my system.
She talked to every employee when she entered; some days when Mano was over, they would share a dinner and talk about life. I didn’t know what life Mano had to talk about, seeing how he was just a kid who played football, but he and Holly always laughed so hard that she’d start snorting.
Mano was always on a mission to get Holly to snort. When I heard it from across the restaurant, I couldn’t help but smile. Holly and her laughs felt like medicine to my soul, and I didn’t even know my soul felt sick.
Ayumu was also becoming great friends with Holly, and they’d go back and forth on different cooking techniques. Some days, she’d come before we opened, and Ayumu would create off-the-menu items for Holly. She was spoiled rotten with love from all the employees and Mano.
I blamed those smiles.
Holly and her effing smiles…
“Did you invite her?” Mano asked me one night after I finished locking up the restaurant. I knew who he was talking about because that seemed to be all we talked about lately.
“No, I didn’t invite her to your game. I’m not going to, either.”
“What? You have to!” he urged. We walked into the apartment building, and he kept going on and on about how she needed to be at the game.
“Isn’t my support enough?”
“No. I need Holly’s positive vibes. You only bring Eeyore vibes.”
I chuckled because, well, he wasn’t wrong. I was Mano’s biggest fan, though. There was no doubt about it.
We got onto the elevators, and Mano hit the twenty-fifth instead of hitting the twenty-fourth floor.
“What are you doing?” I asked, arching an eyebrow.
He wrapped his hands around the straps of his backpack and swung back and forth. “Going to ask Holly to come to my game on Friday.”
“You’re not asking her that.” I reached passed him and hit number four.
He shrugged. “You’re more than allowed to get off on the twenty-fourth floor, but I’m going to Holly’s and asking her to come to the game. I’ll also tell her how my brother is crushing on her and has been reading her novels each night before bed.”
I shot him a cold stare. “What? I haven’t read her books.”
“Stop with the lies, Kai. I noticed your John Grisham book looked extra thick while you were reading it on the couch last night. Almost as if one of Holly’s books was inside of said novel. Almost as if you were masking what you were reading.”
I huffed. Mano had uncovered my sneaky reading tactic. Yes, I’d been reading Holly’s books for a while now. It was before we formed a somewhat friendship. It started as a mere curiosity at first. I’d never picked up a romance book, and I was ready to hate it and roll my eyes at how bad it would be. I went in grumpily prepared to collect scenes I could mock her about.
I figured I’d only make it through the first chapter, but the next thing I knew, five hours had passed, and it was two in the morning. I felt dazed and confused about how much I loved it. I instantly added more to my shopping cart online. I was ashamed of how many of Holly’s books were currently hidden in my bedroom, waiting for their chance to sit inside John Grisham’s book.