Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 110(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22029 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 110(@200wpm)___ 88(@250wpm)___ 73(@300wpm)
Once I put everything in the dryer, I hop in the shower. Normally, I shower in the morning but tonight I need the hard water pressure to ease the stress I have in my neck. I never understood this until Liam explained how this is as good as a massage. Still, I much prefer his hands on me. After standing under the water for who knows how long, I get out. The hot water eased some of the tension, but not enough.
Outside the bathroom door, my mom stands there, wringing her hands.
“What?”
“Nothing,” she says. “Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” I say a bit sarcastically.
“I was thinking. Maybe tomorrow I can take you shopping for some new clothes. Just like we used to.”
“Okay,” I tell her. I’m not about to pass up new clothes, especially if she’s paying.
“Okay, good night.”
“Night.” Back in my room, I dry off, get dressed and crawl into bed. As soon as my head hits the pillow, I know I’m not long for this world.
My phone rings and even though the ringer is on the lowest setting, it scares the shit out of me. Blindly, I reach for the cradle and lift it from the receiver. “Hello?” My voice is hoarse, groggily.
“Hey, baby,” Liam says on the other end. Hearing him causes me to sit up straight and rub the sleep from my eyes. “I’m sorry I woke you.”
“It’s okay. What’s going on?”
“Nothing . . . I just.” Liam pauses and takes a deep breath. “I can’t—”
“Are you okay?”
“No,” he says quietly. “I need to come see you.”
Who am I to say no?
“What about football practice?”
Liam goes silent and I fear I’ve said something to upset him or there’s someone in his room right now. The last I knew, he didn’t have a roommate, thanks to Mason, so he should be all alone. I shake my head, clearing the last thought away. Liam wouldn’t cheat.
“Josie, I need to see you,” he says. “It’s been six weeks, and I can’t . . . you don’t . . . I need you, Jojo. I’m leaving now.”
Before I can protest or ask him to wait until the weekend, he hangs up. I try to call him back, but my call goes to voicemail.
I turn on my bedside lamp and get out of bed to rummage through a stack of books until I find an atlas. Grabbing a notepad, I flip to Texas, find where Liam is and write down the number of miles from there to here, and then calculate his speed. I’ve never known Liam to drive the speed limit and figure he’ll be here sometime tomorrow night.
Back in bed, I lie there staring at the ceiling and replaying his words over and over in my mind. None of them make sense and he didn’t give me enough time to ask him to elaborate. And then, I start thinking the worst and wonder if he’s cheated on me and he’s coming to break up with me. Surely, he’d just do that on the phone and not say it to my face.
It’s simple. I won’t give him a chance to say those things to me. I’ll have to remind him of why we’re together and how in love we are with each other.
In the morning, I look like death. I didn’t sleep a wink, tossing and turning, imagining the worst of the worst. Half the night, I stared at my phone and willed it to ring, hoping Liam would call just to check in.
He didn’t.
Still, I should be excited to go shopping and buy new clothes even if it’s with my mom. I hope she lets me pick out what I want to wear and not what she deems appropriate for an eighteen-year-old going off to college. If she had her way, I’d be head to toe in burlap. This is comical since for the last four years I wore a very short skirt to school almost every day. She never told me what she thought about me cheering and I’m surprised she has some of my photos up.
“Josephine,” my mom calls my name from the hallway. I grab my purse and sling it over my shoulder. When I come around the corner, she’s standing there, watching me. For a moment, I expect her to say something about me wearing Liam’s sweatshirt, but she doesn’t.
“Are you ready?”
“Yes,” she says, nodding. “Let’s go before your dad gets home and finds out I took his credit card.”
Nothing makes me hustle faster to the car than those words.
chapter 3
. . .
Ihear him open my window and squeeze my eyes shut tighter. It takes everything in me not to giggle or shift in my bed.
Liam’s quiet as he climbs through the now-open window. He’s done this a time or two and has mastered the art of sounding like a mouse versus an elephant. Which is a feat because Liam’s kind of a big guy, and moving stealthily isn’t exactly his forte.