Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 90682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 363(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
I can’t believe he just left without saying goodbye.
I thought, if anything, we were at least friends?
He introduced me to his younger brothers, for heaven’s sake. Doesn’t that count for something?
I roll over, letting my feet hit the ground, dragging some of the bedding off since it has to be thrown in the washing machine anyway, leaving it on the ground behind me in a heap as I make my way toward the bathroom.
I had sex last night with Duke Colter.
Imagine that.
And it was mostly good sex. Mostly. It would have been phenomenal sex had he not come before I had, then abruptly pulled out and come on my stomach.
Can’t win them all, I guess.
I shower, then blow-dry my hair and put makeup on, doing my darndest to look awake.
It’s only once I’m in the kitchen, at the counter pouring myself a mug of the coffee Duke had been kind enough to make this morning that I notice a note and an envelope taped to the back door.
Walking the few steps to it, I tear it off.
In a masculine scrawl, he’d written:
Posey,
Something unexpected came up, and we have to make the announcement earlier than planned—heading to the airport to meet Eli, then flying to Dallas.
Thanks for the hospitality.
DC
Thanks for the hospitality?
Is he for real right now?
I tear open the envelope, rolling my eyes when I find a small stack of hundred-dollar bills inside, tossing it to the counter in frustration.
“I don’t want your fucking money,” I curse, angry and upset and…
Embarrassed.
Hurt.
Lonely.
The house is so quiet without him here. And I wish I could pinpoint why this pit has formed at the bottom of my stomach, but I can’t.
I try to eat breakfast so I don’t go to work on an empty stomach, but I can’t.
I try to clear my head while I’m driving, but I can’t.
The entire day is a blur, only making me more angry and upset, so when I get home, I do the only thing I know to do: I text Molly.
Me: So…Duke is gone.
Molly: Yeah, he and Eli are already in Texas. They’re going live tonight at 8 EST.
I can’t do time-zone math, so I ask her: what time will it be here?
Molly: 7 PM
Me: Oh.
Molly: Why “Oh”? Is everything okay?
I debate how much I should tell her, going back and forth in my mind and my conscience, conscious of the fact I literally told Duke last night I wasn’t going to tell anyone we had sex. However…if I don’t tell my best friend the truth, she’s going to wonder why I’m being so weird, and she’ll think something is wrong, which it is.
I feel gross and sad and…and…if I don’t talk about it I might very well explode.
If he’d woken me up and given me a heads-up that he was leaving—instead of sneaking off before I woke up, I would be fine.
I’d be okay. Mostly.
Me: I was just surprised he left; he never said anything. I woke up and his stuff was gone.
Molly: That’s weird, but I mean, sometimes that’s how these things work. News breaks, and they have to get ahead of it.
Me: What do you mean “news breaks and they have to get ahead of it”?
Molly: Shit—I thought you knew
Me: KNEW WHAT
Molly: There is a picture floating around the internet that he’s tagged in—you’re in it, but of course, no one knows it’s you.
Me: WHAT DO YOU MEAN I’M IN IT? HOW can that BE?!
Molly: It’s from yesterday—at his brothers’ house.
Me: His brothers’ house?
That makes no sense, none at all. We didn’t take any photos of each other yesterday. His brothers never took photos, not even selfies. They were too busy working. They were too—
A photo appears in our messages.
It’s a photo not a single one of us took. It wasn’t physically possible given that it was from across the street, zoomed in, mostly grainy but still obviously Duke Colter with his arm around me.
He’d come down into the front yard to grab a side table after I’d finished hosing it off and drying it, and had put his arm around my shoulders to ask how I was holding up. If I was tired, if I was hungry. Given my shoulders a squeeze.
It was friendly but had still caused me to look up at him.
Oh Jesus, the look on my face in that damn photograph…
Adoring.
On top of that—HE GAVE ME MORE MONEY.
What the actual fuck.
Molly: No one knows it’s you.
Me: Yeah but the LOOK ON MY FACE, Molly…
I want to hide.
Die from embarrassment.
Me: Has he seen this?
Molly: Um, yeah…the whole world has seen this. Which is why he’s in Dallas a few days early.
Me: Why would he have to fly to Dallas early because of a leaked photograph??
Molly: Because now SportsCenter did a bunch of digging—they know the truck out front was rented in Illinois, and now they’re speculating he’d been traded to the Chicago Steam. The story is blowing up.