Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 72897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72897 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“Wait,” I said, taking a few steps forward and grabbing the sleeve of Henry’s jacket. I turned quickly and looked back at my aunt’s house, making sure she wasn’t in earshot.
“What’s up?” Henry asked. He was close to me now, and it took every ounce of control in me not to stare at his lips.
“I… I don’t want to do the same thing tonight,” I said, my voice hushed. “This is the last night I’m going to be here for a while.”
“You don’t want to do the same thing?” Henry said. “But you always do—”
“Come over tonight,” I blurted out.
He lifted an eyebrow. “You don’t think you’re going to get in trouble?”
I swallowed hard, pulling in a breath of icy air through my nostrils. “I can’t get in trouble if no one finds out.”
A slow smile spread over Henry’s face. He was always trying to get me to break the rules. Usually, I never gave in.
“Hell yes,” he said.
“Come to my bedroom window at eleven o’clock tonight,” I said. “Not ten. Not ten fifty-five. Eleven. Okay?”
He nodded. “Got it. Yes. Eleven.”
My stomach was doing somersaults already. If my aunt caught us, she would tell my mother, and my days in Berrydale might be over in a split second.
But Henry’s gaze was sparkling with excitement, the orange glow of my aunt’s house reflecting in the pale green of his eyes.
I’d do anything to make Henry’s eyes look like that. I wanted to look at that for the rest of my life. And it was clear that this already was making him very, very happy.
My teeth chattered as a breeze blew past. “Am I crazy? I’m already terrified,” I said.
“Don’t be. Love you, Sebastian.”
He was already walking off, practically skipping his way back across the yard.
It was ten fifty-two when I heard Henry’s soft knocking at my window. I clenched my jaw, tossing off my sheets in my dark bedroom. I tiptoed across the hardwood floor to the window, pushing open the curtains.
Henry’s face was right there behind the foggy glass. He was holding up a small bottle of something in one hand, shaking it at me.
I glanced back to the crack under my door, making sure my aunt and uncle had turned out the light in the hallway, which meant they’d gone to sleep. The coast was clear. I was actually going to have to go through with this.
I pushed open my window as slowly as humanly possible. I winced as the frame made a quick, sharp cracking sound, pausing as if it had been as loud as a gunshot.
“Come on,” Henry said from outside.
“Shh,” I hissed before I started again. Cold air rushed in as I opened the window all the way.
“It’s not even eleven yet,” I whispered at Henry, who was now poking his head in through my window.
“I tried my best,” Henry said.
“Well you’re fucking awful with time.”
“Oooh,” Henry said, a little too loudly. “So you curse like a sailor when it’s past your bedtime, too?”
“Fuck off,” I whispered. I smiled despite myself. “And yes, apparently.”
“Let me in,” Henry said. “I stole this orange liqueur stuff, which is probably going to suck, but we’re partying tonight.”
“What? No. You can’t come in here,” I said. “Let me get my coat. I’m coming out there.”
“But it’s colder than the Arctic tundra out here,” he protested.
“So?”
“So we’re going to hang outside even if it snows?”
I shrugged. “The cold’s never bothered you.”
His eyes searched my face. “Yeah, but I don’t want you to freeze,” he said. “Don’t hurt yourself just because you’re in the mood to break rules tonight, S.”
“I’ll be fine,” I said. “My coat is thick.”
“All right,” he said as he started to head across the yard. “But when you start shivering and need to huddle close to me for warmth, I’m going to say I told you so.”
Henry had no clue how badly I wanted that. Hell, I would have gone out in the cold totally naked if it meant that Henry would hold me close.
My crush was getting a little out of hand these days.
I crept over to my closet, tossing on two layers of long-sleeve shirts and my heavy grey winter coat. I tugged on a pair of pants and boots before sliding out of my window into the deep blue night outside.
I could see Henry’s breath from behind the cluster of mature pine trees on the other side of the street. There was a small green park across the street from our houses where Christmas trees and firewood were sold in the fall. The vendors had long since shut down for the night.
Henry was sitting between two trees on a pile of logs that an old man named Roger sold for firewood during the day. That was the kind of village that Berrydale was. Roger trusted that no one would take his firewood at night, leaving it there at the edge of the park. He’d never had a single log go missing.