Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 84952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84952 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 425(@200wpm)___ 340(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
The Board put me up in this kick-ass hotel—even covering it for an extra week because I mentioned I was coming in early. As much as I hate to admit it, it’s a pretty good distraction from life at the moment.
River: What are you doing tonight?
Crew: Don’t you mean WHO he’s doing tonight?
River: Excellent point.
I roll my eyes.
Me: Oh, come on.
Crew: Dude. Don’t try to lie to us. We know you.
River: The real you.
Crew: And we like you anyway. Go figure.
River: Most of the time. Easy with your generalizations there, Hollywood.
Crew: I stand corrected. However, do you have a name yet?
My laughter fills the room.
Me: While I’m honored you think I can work that fast, I haven’t.
River: We don’t think. We know. We’ve seen you in action.
I scoff.
Me: Like you’re any better, asshole.
Crew: Hey, I’m really feeling the love, but I gotta go. I’m in the middle of something. Thanks for checking in, Hollis, even if it was super random and slightly weird.
Me: You asked for check-ins. I’m giving them to you. Be careful what you wish for.
Crew: Noted.
River: A redhead.
Me: ?
Crew: He’s totally going with a blonde.
Me: I thought you were gone.
Crew: Bye.
River: I’m gone too.
Me: Later.
Tossing my phone on the bed, I look up. My reflection is smiling back at me.
I sit and stare at myself for a while, taking in the strangeness of seeing something other than a grimace on my face. Between royally fucking up our football season, ruining any chance I had at the pros—however small that chance might’ve been—and now the holidays, life has been more piss than posies.
But when is it not, really?
Get your shit together. Crazy Carl’s words filter through my mind. The late-sixties alien hunter from our favorite bar, The Truth is Out There, gave River, Crew, and me that wise piece of advice after we lost our last game … and ended the season with an interception.
Somehow, it seemed fitting.
I grab my wallet, shove it in my pocket, and head for the door.
“You know you’re screwed when Crazy Carl makes sense,” I grumble, getting to my feet. “But he’s right. I gotta get my shit together.”
Time is running out.
Two
Larissa
“I’m done.” I finish drying my hands and then toss the brown paper in the trash. “I mean it this time. Don’t try to talk me out of it.”
Bellamy bites the corner of her lip as she finishes rinsing her hands. While her voice may not betray her, her eyes certainly do.
“Don’t laugh at me,” I warn her.
“I’m not.”
But she is. Suppressed humor at my expense splashes across her pretty face. I can’t blame her for being amused by my slightly random and altogether unrealistic statement because I’ve said this before.
More than once, actually.
And even though I’ve always meant it, I really mean it this time.
“May I ask with what, exactly, you’re done with?” Bellamy asks, flipping a long, blond lock of hair over her shoulder. “Because there are a couple of different options here, and I just want to clarify.”
“Men.”
“That’s a very, very broad term, Riss.”
I stand beside the settee in the ladies’ room of Paddy’s, my favorite restaurant in Savannah, and watch my best friend apply another coat of fabulous red lipstick. It screams confidence and badassery—two things that Bellamy Davenport certainly is. I’d like to think I am those things too, except, unlike Bells, I keep getting played.
This has been an unfortunate consistency throughout the past last few years. I think a relationship has long-standing potential, and my lover thinks I’m nothing more than a glorified booty call. I’m all for a good one-night stand if the conditions are right. I’m not even totally opposed to a friends-with-benefits package.
What I am against, vehemently, are men who lure me in, sweep me off my feet, and then turn out to be egotistical, narcissistic, and completely selfish maniacs.
“Maybe I wanted it to be a broad term,” I tell her. “Maybe I’m done with men altogether.”
“But are you? Are you really?” She slips her lipstick back into her purse. “Because I know you and the men you so sadly choose to date—”
“Hey!”
“And I don’t think men as a gender are your problem. And I think you know that.”
I gasp in mock horror. “What are you saying? Are you saying I’m the problem?”
“I’d never even consider such a thing,” she teases.
“Liar.”
She spins on her heel and faces me. When our eyes meet, we start to laugh.
Bellamy has been my best friend my entire life. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know her. She’s always lived next door to my aunt Siggy—the best aunt in the entire world—and she’s always been the wild to my calm.
More or less.
“You know what your problem is,” she says pointedly when her laughter subsides. “It’s not fair to yourself to pretend it’s every man in the universe when, in reality, it’s—”