Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 51122 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 51122 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 256(@200wpm)___ 204(@250wpm)___ 170(@300wpm)
“I’m nervous,” I murmured quietly. “What should I wear?”
Rebel rattled off a list of things she thought I should wear, and I went with none of them, choosing to stay in my pencil skirt and button-down shirt that I’d worn to school that morning.
I wasn’t in school or anything. Actually, I’d been out for quite a while.
However, I had a brand-new teaching position at the local high school for business education. Our old principal had requested that I start guiding the young students as they navigated the last year of their high school education.
I’d agreed, and now I taught a single class there every day for an hour.
And since I hated doing laundry twice, I stayed in my getup.
“You are not wearing that,” Rebel shook her head. “That’s so boring.”
“It’s gonna have to work, because I don’t have the desire to go to the dry cleaners after I wear the clothes you suggested,” I explained.
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll drop it off.”
“You pick it up, too, and we have a deal,” I murmured.
“Fine,” she rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure what your problem is with that laundromat.”
Kilgore, Texas was large, but it was also small. Though it was growing, we still only had one grocery store, one bank, and one laundromat. Though we now had eighteen coffee shops, multiple churches, and so many banks that I couldn’t even name them all.
And the one and only laundromat in the entire area was run by the one boy I’d actually dated in high school, and now couldn’t stand. There was just something about him that really grossed me out, and I couldn’t pinpoint why.
He’d never done anything overtly invasive or startling to me, it was just something about his personality that seemed…off.
Needless to say, I didn’t like going there and Rebel knew it.
“Come on, I’ll pick it out since I’ll be the one taking it in.” Rebel smiled.
I sighed but followed dutifully, ending up in a silky black number that I’d worn all of two times. Once to try it on in the store, and once to show Rebel when I bought it.
It was a little more ‘out there’ than I usually wore, and if I were being honest, I bought it for tonight.
Why did I buy it for tonight?
One word. Titus.
I knew he’d be there. He’d RSVPed and Rebel and I were the ones in charge of the planning of this fine party.
Though, I’d done a whole lot more calling instead of the leg work that Rebel had put into it.
That was usually how our partnership worked.
She did the peopling, I did the computer work that kept me far away from people.
I wasn’t the best person in the world when it came to socializing, that was why I’d already been pre-gaming tonight with a glass of sherry and a cookie.
That cookie being from a bakery in town that specialized in cookies the size of your face.
I was now full of caramel, chocolate, and flour.
I was also insanely full because I’d eaten the entire thing.
And I wasn’t too sure what the dress would be doing to my figure.
I wasn’t small, but I wasn’t large. I was blissfully in between and okay with it. I got to eat what I wanted, and not get too heavy. I got to work out if I wanted to work out and not die from being completely out of shape. And overall, I was happy with who I was.
But would Titus be? I mean, he was a professional football player after all. He was tall, gorgeous, in the best shape of any NFL player in the entire league—holy abs, Batman!—and I was just…me.
I hadn’t played volleyball since high school.
That’s when I’d felt at my most attractive.
Honestly, I wished I was high school me’s idea of ‘fat’ and not middle-aged me mediocre.
“Oh, you look banging.” Rebel placed both of her hands underneath her chin and batted her eyes lovingly at me.
I snorted and picked up my keys. “Are you ready to head out?”
She sighed. “I guess.”
Rebel, my sweet dateless friend, had signed up for this pony show because of me.
Honestly, she had zero desire whatsoever to have anything to do with our high school selves. Apparently, she’d hated high school.
Who knew?
Anyway, she was doing me this ‘favor’ to finally get me what I’d always wanted.
Titus.
And I’d agreed to let her because it was finally time for me to put up or shut up.
Tonight, I was either going to go home on Titus King’s arm, or I was going to stop obsessing over him and find some other man who made me happy.
Honestly, I hoped that it was the former and not the latter.
I just had to hope that Titus was on the same page with me.
Over the years, I’d seen him with a few random women on his arm, but none of them stayed.