Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
“That sounds like an understatement,” I say.
“Yeah, it is.”
“That’s awful,” I say, but I’m giddy for more of his stories, more of him.
Just more.
He regales me with tales of his high school sports, from soccer games to football plays, till I say, “Is that all you did growing up? Play sports?”
With a laugh, he shakes his head. “It wasn’t all I did, but I was good at sports for a while there. Until I stopped playing,” he says, and I file that detail away as I keep listening. “Plus, I think my mom just wanted to balance out all the show tunes and cabaret I’d grown up with. You know, just to give me a full sense of the world.”
Is he for real? I nearly bolt out of the chair with excitement. “I love cabaret,” I say, breathless.
He shoots me a doubtful look. “You do?”
“Cabaret, show tunes, Broadway, you name it,” I say, enthused by this bond I didn’t know we had.
“Yeah?” His tone pitches up, maybe with excitement too.
“I do. I could spend all night in the theater,” I say, and that flirty purr returns to my voice, unbidden.
Dammit. I didn’t mean to go there.
And I shouldn’t have, because Bridger glances around nervously, checks the ornate and ominous clock on the living room wall—my dad had it shipped from his favorite shop in Knightsbridge—then sighs. “I have a meeting,” he says. “I should go.”
Please don’t go.
But I know better than to sound desperate. “Of course. But you wouldn’t leave without signing my cast, would you?”
There’s tension in his shoulders still as he reaches for the Sharpie on the table, then checks out my cast. Layla and Ethan already commandeered most of the fiberglass real estate.
“Hmm. Not much room left,” he says, analytically, checking out the options.
But I saved a spot for him. Kept it virginal. “Right by the toes,” I say, pointing to the land he can claim on me. “There’s a little space.”
I wiggle them, showing off my bright red and purple toenail polish. “My friend Layla painted them this morning. She calls them Skittles toes.”
When Bridger meets my gaze, his blue eyes darken to the color of a midnight sky. “I’ll just sign right here by those Skittles toes then.”
As he scratches out his signature near my candy-colored nails, his fingers skim against my toes.
A whoosh rushes through my body.
This is the first time he’s touched me.
I don’t intend for it to be the last.
3
IS IT OBVIOUS?
Harlow
Three months later my cast is gone, and it’s time to wear heels again.
It’s a New York party night after all, and I’m not about to show up among the glitterati of Manhattan in flats.
“I still can’t believe you’re leaving me to fend for myself tonight,” I whine to Layla after we bound up the steps in Dad’s brownstone and turn into my old bedroom suite. She’s only staying for thirty minutes at the party, and I feel betrayed already.
“I’m the worst. But trust me, I tried to get out of the charity board dinner that Mom is making me go to,” she says, huffing.
“Too bad bailing isn’t an option,” I say, heading for the closet. But it would be poor form to ghost my—cough, cough—own party. But it’s really Dad’s party. His why-doesn’t-everyone-congratulate-me-for-having-a-daughter-land-a-prestigious-semester-abroad-program party. All his friends and business associates will be here to kiss his ring.
Why else would they come? Because they care that I’m one of ten college students in the country accepted into this French program? Or maybe how studying in Paris for a few months will help with my dual degrees?
They care as much as they cared when Dad threw a party for his little valedictorian when I graduated from Carlisle Academy three years ago.
In my walk-in closet, I flick through the options and pick a little black dress. I slip it on, then peruse the shoes, running my fingers over a few shelves. I hold up a pair of red-bottomed black heels. “The ones Dad bought for me last month after he bought us orchestra seats for the opening of Adventures of the Last Single Guy in New York, and then finally turned up at intermission. But hey, he was, ahem, late from a meeting?” I grab a pair of silvery crisscross high-heeled sandals. “Or the ones Joan bought as an aspirational gift after I broke my ankle?”
Layla rolls her sky-blue eyes with a particular kind of carelessness, the kind reserved for parental BS. Then, she points a French-manicured nail authoritatively at the silvery pair. Layla makes fast decisions. “Those will make your legs look extra hot. Not that that’s hard.”
I bob a shoulder, glowing a little from the compliment. “Thanks, friend,” I say, then I perch on the edge of the bed and slide into the shoes, methodically crossing the straps till they climb high enough to hug my calves. I rise, then jut out a hip, showing off the outfit.