Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 80052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80052 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
I let the door close. “Talking?”
“Yes. If you’ve forgotten the rules already, I can jot down a list. In fact, I might have just come up with another—” She turns back to survey the room like she’s intensely focused on solving a problem. I watch from the narrow foyer as she stands and walks over to the large window, flattens her back against it, and then starts taking steps, strategically lining the back of her heel up to the front of her toe. She does this over and over until she reaches me, pauses, and looks up with a challenging gaze. We’re chest to chest. Her eyes are two tiny chisels trying to bore through me. It’s the first time she’s looked directly at me since she strolled into my room. It feels like someone’s squeezing a tight fist around my stomach.
She doesn’t look like she’s going to cave anytime soon. We could be here all night, so I move aside for her, and she completes her task of measuring the length of the room with a satisfied hum.
“Thirty-one feet, give or take. I’ll be generous and let you have the bigger portion. Fifteen feet for me, sixteen for you. I know maintenance is busy battening down the hatches, but I think you and I could jerry-rig a dividing wall easily enough. Where do you think we could find some plywood around here? And how good are you with a hammer?”
She’s serious.
If I handed her a pack of nails and a two-by-four, she’d have a KEEP OUT sign erected within a half hour. By the end of the day, I’m sure she’d finish construction on her wall. I burst her bubble with a dry tone. “Every bit of plywood we have is going toward hurricane prep. Your wall will have to wait.”
“Nonsense. Plywood’s out, but we can get creative. How many shirts did you bring?” She opens the top drawer of the dresser. “Perfect! Look at this! We can string them on a line from wall to wall. Right over the bed and everything. That could work.”
“Put my shirt down.”
She holds my white T-shirt lower so that it falls exactly at her neckline. It’s like she’s a child at a fair poking her head through a silly backdrop. Look, mom. Take my picture! “Now, now, don’t get testy. If you don’t want me to use your stuff, I’m sure I can just borrow clothes from Maddox and Desiree. They aren’t using them right now anyway. Also, for the record, I didn’t realize you owned T-shirts. Not to mention, this one is decadently soft! So unlike you. I’d expect you to prefer fiber constructed of aluminum cans and old tires. Tough and durable.”
She says the end part with a strong Soviet accent, heavy emphasis on the r.
Sometimes—okay, all the time—I look at Paige and think, Goddamn it, you’re the funniest person I’ve ever met. Simply existing near you makes my day that much better. But the greatest travesty in all this is that I can’t tell her. Not how funny she is, not how much I want to kiss her, even when she’s being goofy, even when she waggles my T-shirt back and forth just to taunt me.
“I want my shirt back.”
“What are you going to do to get it?” she asks, holding it up like she thinks it’s out of my reach.
I snatch it, and it’s like taking candy from a baby. Easier.
I tell her that, and she scowls.
“I can’t believe I’ve forgotten myself. You’ve completely distracted me and made me break my own rule! No talking is no talking. Now, go to your side of the room and leave me alone.”
The next thirty minutes go like this:
Outside, the rain picks up to a real downpour. Without the TV on, I can hear the storm strengthening, the wind howling. There’s a palm tree just outside our room that keeps thrashing against our window. It would be an ominous backdrop if we were in any way paying attention to it.
We’re not. There could be ten hurricanes, a dozen tornadoes, and an earthquake to boot and we would still be zeroed in on intently ignoring each other, nothing else.
I sit in a chair with my computer open on my lap. I’m working, answering emails, minding my own business.
Paige goes at it, rearranging the furniture in the suite. If it’s not nailed down or ten thousand pounds (like the dresser and the bed), chances are it’s found a new home. She learned that lesson the hard way. Watching her try with all her might to shift that dresser barely half an inch was highly entertaining, but I had to pretend like I wasn’t watching. I made a sound—a blunted laugh that I had to swallow—and she looked up at me with a speculative gaze. I squinted down at my computer screen and moved my mouth really fast like I was reading the most important document I’d ever seen. Oh, look at this email, straight from the president, filled with the nuclear codes and the conclusive evidence that Jack from Lost was in purgatory the whole time.