Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117363 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“Okay, here’s what I’ve got,” Cat said, and Jean let her rambling voice pull him out of his thoughts. When she darted across the kitchen for a missed ingredient halfway through her slicing, Jean tapped out a quiet beat on his leg and counted.
A cool evening breeze. Rainbows. Open roads. Teammates.
But that last wasn’t quite right; he’d been on teams since he was seven years old. He could barely remember the children he’d played with in France when the Ravens were an overbearing presence in his memories. He loved the Ravens, he hated them, he wished he’d never met them. The Trojans could not exist in the same category. He could not be grateful for one without summoning unpleasant memories of the other. Jean tapped his thumb against his thigh in thought and tried again.
Friends?
Jean’s past was ash and broken bone. The only thing his future held was a deal made on his behalf: a demand he play a game he could barely stand anymore for as long as he could hold a racquet. Jean would drag himself onward because following orders was all he knew to do, but he was so prematurely exhausted and defeated he didn’t know how to take that first step. If these three could at least pull him away from the ledge until he found his feet again, that would be enough.
He wouldn’t stop to think what would happen at graduation. For now, all that mattered was this moment. He considered the weight of Laila’s foot hooked around the leg of his stool, the ridiculous way Cat bobbed and danced as she made an absolute mess of the island, and the heat of Jeremy’s shoulder where he sat almost pressed into Jean’s side.
Friends, he thought again, and this time it almost felt real.