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)
Row was taking his sweet time. The shower was still running, so I treated myself to a small tour of his room. In my defense, it was barely even his room anymore. Zeta had been using it as a makeshift pantry for all the sauces and olive oil she made and sold to the locals. I opened drawers, sifted through dilapidated vintage books, and rummaged through his closet. Most of his stuff was gone—sold or taken to Paris—but there was one drawer in his closet that seemed stuffed, full to the brim. It was jammed, so I had to yank it open using force. As soon as I did, huge stacks of paper greeted me. Documents…books…pictures? Yup. There were pictures there too. Funny, he didn’t strike me as the sentimental type. I recognized one peeking out from the bottom of the mound, of me and Dylan at a county fair, and plucked it out with a smile. My beam collapsed when I realized he had cut me out of the picture. Scissored a square where my face had been.
What the…?
With trembling hands, I started going through the pictures in his drawer. There were dozens of them. All of them of me and Dylan, or just me. In all of them, my face had been cut out. What the hell? Why would he do this? We weren’t friendly anymore, but we weren’t enemies either, as far as I could tell. Tears prickled my eyes, but I didn’t let them loose. The bedroom door opened with a familiar old-house grunt. I twisted around savagely, my cheeks stinging pink.
He stood there, his six-pack on full display, his hair a damp mess. A towel was wrapped around his slim waist. “What the fuck are you doing in here, Dot?”
Hot, liquid anger swirled in my gut, making my entire body hum with fury. “Why?” I raised a stack of ruined pictures in my fist, tilting my chin up daringly. “Why do you hate me? What did I ever do to you?”
There was no other way to explain the sudden change in his behavior. His eyes met mine across the room. Surely, he couldn’t break my heart before I gave it to him. He had no permission to do so.
What was I talking about? I had no heart to give. It’d been smashed into powder, ground into dust.
Then why is it pulsing so loudly between my legs now that it’s just the two of us?
“It’s not what you think,” he said woodenly. His voice sounded foreign, detached; my knees buckled. He didn’t deny it. God, what excuse could he have for doing something this mean? This creepy?
“You don’t know what I think.” A miserable smile slashed my face. “But tell me how it is anyway.”
“Can’t.” Face expressionless. Eyes dead. Muscles stiff.
“Why?”
“Reasons.”
“Reasons?” My neck and face heated further with rage. “That’s not even an answer.”
“Course it is.” He ambled deeper into the room, unfastening his towel. I looked away, squeezing my eyes shut. Why was he a ruthless douchebag all of a sudden? What had I done to deserve this? “I don’t owe you jack shit, Dot. You aren’t my friend. Just my little sister’s annoying sidekick.”
By the rustling coming from his direction, I gathered he was getting dressed. “You used to like me,” I heard myself say, and hated how childish and whiny I sounded.
“No, I used to tolerate you,” he amended. “Still do.”
My eyelids fluttered open, my pride overriding my fear. Luckily, he was already dressed in ripped jeans and a worn-out white Henley, the clothes clinging to his defined muscles like they were sewn onto him.
“Cutting my face out of all of Dylan’s pictures is actively hating me,” I breathed out.
“Maybe you’re not as lovable as you think.” He tucked a cigarette behind his ear, smirking at me. I stared at him, dumbfounded. I didn’t deserve this. Either he was going to tell me what the hell I’d done, or he could take a hike.
“Know what?” I grabbed my backpack from his floor, slinging it over my shoulder. “I’ll walk home. Thanks for sending Rhyland off just so you could be a major dick to me.”
“Speaking of dick, heard you’ve been getting lots of those recently.”
“Yours is not gonna be one of them, so if that’s why you’re bitter…” I crouched down to tie my shoelaces. “Hope you stew on that fun fact.”
I stormed out of his room, taking the stairs two at a time. My pulse was pounding between my ears. His parents weren’t home, and Dylan was still outside, so there was no one to witness whatever shit show this was. I heard his feet pounding on the rotten wood of the Casablancases’ stairs, and my heart dropped to the pit of my stomach. His hand caught me by the shoulder, spinning me around. He pinned me against the rails, panting hard, like he was running. We were flush against each other when I noticed his hands caged me from either side, fingers curled over the banisters. Our faces were so close, I could see the individual pieces of stubble on his face. My whole body drew in a breath, my nipples pebbling against my swimsuit, brushing the ragged fabric. Heat pulled beneath my navel, and I swore I could smell my own arousal. Could he too? Crap. I hoped not.