Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 153268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 766(@200wpm)___ 613(@250wpm)___ 511(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 766(@200wpm)___ 613(@250wpm)___ 511(@300wpm)
I pressed my lips together, suppressing a laugh.
“What?” She frowned.
“I was looking for that stub all over. I used to collect them. Thought I was losing my mind.”
“Nope. You were just gaining my heart. Four.”
She pulled out a black wristband I recognized as my own. “Hey.” I frowned. “That was my favorite wristband. I gave Rhy a shiner in junior high because I thought he stole it from me.”
“Well, you obviously cannot have it back because I’m obsessed with you—and now the entire world knows it.” She gestured wildly to everyone around us. “Proof number five I’m so unbelievably, insanely in love with you…” She took out an Oh Henry! wrapper. “Need I explain?”
I laughed. “Nope.” She had been keeping the wrappers too. Note to self: check if my girl has a hoarding problem.
“Proof number six—by the way, I only stopped at ten because Rhy said he couldn’t fit all my garbage in his suitcase, and I couldn’t afford to pay for a suitcase here myself.”
“True story,” Rhyland groaned behind her back.
She had come here using her last pennies to tell me she loved me. I was so going to marry the fuck out of this girl.
“Number six is the hard soap you used your entire adolescence. I bought one so I could get a sniff of you whenever I wanted. I, uhm, may or may not have dried my hands to the point of peeling due to washing them so often. I just wanted to smell you.”
She pulled something else out of the box. “Number seven is a cigarette butt. Not just any cigarette, though. This was from the first time you let me try smoking.”
“You hated it,” I pointed out, ignoring the traffic jam of servers with trays waiting for Cal to move out of their way. And the entire universe staring at us, for that matter.
“Yeah. But I loved you.”
“So you did it to impress me?”
“Why else would anyone try smoking?” she snorted. Good point. “Ready for number eight?”
“Never been more ready for something in my entire life.” Other than the make-up sex we were about to have in my upstairs office in about five minutes.
“Number eight.” She took out something brown and small, biting down on her lip. “Okay, don’t judge me. But this is…”
“Baby, no.” I screwed my fingers into my eye sockets.
“Yes.”
“Cal, that’s unsanitary.”
“So is having sex on your chef station.” The entire room gasped in unison. “Kidding,” she choked out.
Fuck. I was about to be closed down an hour into my restaurant launch, and I didn’t even give a shit. “Why did you save a… How old is this taco?” I grimaced.
“Seven years old,” she confirmed with a nod. “…and a half. Fine, closer to eight. But it was the first handmade taco you created from scratch, and you gave it to me.”
“To taste, not keep.”
“Semantics.” She waved her hand with an eye roll. “You wanted me to have your first taco. That’s like handing over your V-card. Number nine is more orthodox.”
Thank God.
She hunted for something in the box, fishing it out with a flourish. “Your favorite hoodie.”
Motherfucker. I had looked for that hoodie for months. Came with the territory of being too poor to afford a replacement. It was an old, black, tattered thing but seemed in pristine condition.
“Did you wear it?”
“What? Of course not.” She looked abhorred. “It would’ve erased your perfect smell with my overbearing Victoria’s Secret body mist.”
“What’s number ten?” I crossed my arms over my chest, smirking. I didn’t care that everyone was looking. Didn’t care that this was unprofessional, uncomfortably public, and would probably leave an internet trail forever.
Cal pressed her lips together, looking at me unsurely. She blinked five times in a row. I softened, reaching to squeeze her shoulders. “You don’t have to show me here if it’s too private. You’ve already gone beyo—”
“It’s not a keepsake.”
“Baby, it could literally be my nuts and I’ll say thank you.”
She took a deep breath, nodded, and pulled out a square, black box. Slowly, she put the tiny box down on the floor. But she didn’t stand back up. No. She stayed down, on one knee, shaking fingers about to open the box.
Calla Litvin was about to propose. To me.
Fuck my life sideways.
“Row, may I—”
I couldn’t let her do it. No matter how good this felt for my ego, I wasn’t going to deprive her of her princess moment. She deserved all the good moments after what that garbage human, Franco, had put her through.
“No,” I blurted out. Her face paled, eyes flaring. “You can’t ask me to marry you.”
Her brows furrowed. “I…can’t?”
“No.” I lowered myself to one knee. “Because I get to ask you that first.”
Now we were both on one knee on the floor in front of the entire fucking restaurant.
Rhyland groaned from somewhere behind my shoulder, “This is the most cringe thing I’ve ever seen. And I was there when Paris Hilton tried to launch a music career.”