Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 69847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69847 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
The coach, sensing this, called it a day.
As I waited for them to start dispersing, I felt my phone buzz in my hands.
Hades: I can’t believe I’m reading this. You slept with him?
Twice.
Me: Why is that so hard to believe? And I never said I slept with him. I said that I liked him.
Hades: You saying you like him means that you slept with him.
I rolled my eyes, even though she did have a point.
Me: Why do I even bother texting you?
Hades: Because I’m your twin, and you love me despite my failings.
She was right about that.
No matter what she did or how she did it, I would always love her.
That was the crux of the matter at hand.
Hades was an asshole.
To the point that sometimes I couldn’t stand her.
Then again, all of my siblings were assholes. That was just the thing that happened when you had to fend for yourself for your entire life, were forced into child labor, and had to raise yourself from an early age.
Our dad had definitely done us all a disservice, and to be completely truthful, he’d turned us all into fucked up versions of the people we could’ve been had we been raised in a loving, stable home.
“Hey, sunshine.”
I looked up to find Slone looking at me from five rows down and a jump over a short fence concrete wall.
“Yes?” I batted my eyelids at him.
His mouth turned up into a smirk at the corner as he gestured with his finger in a “come here” motion.
Eyes wide, I shook my head.
“Come on,” he urged, calling me from where I was sitting in the bleachers.
I was already shaking my hand. “No, sir. That sign very clearly says ‘athletes and staff only’ and I’m neither of those.”
I’d contemplated hopping it earlier when I saw him bent over stretching his hamstrings. I’d also questioned whether I could get there and smack his ass before I either A, got caught by his horrible owner, or B, got caught by him.
Deciding I’d never make it either way, I’d resolved to stay in my seat.
And, to torture myself, I’d decided to check in with my family after radio silence for the last few days.
His eyes were fairly twinkling as he pushed yet again. “Come on. No one is out here but us. We’re the last ones here.”
That was true. The majority of the team had left.
However, Titus and Slone had agreed to stay with a young boy that looked so fresh and new that there was no way he wasn’t just picked up by the team.
I’d sat across from him on the way to the arena on the shuttle that’d been provided for the team.
Now, two hours after arriving, I was overly bored and wondering what we could do the rest of the day…if he was even allowed to go out and do anything.
I sure hoped so, because I’d never been to this particular area before, and what I’d seen so far was gorgeous. Pittsburgh was captivating, and I couldn’t wait to get out and do something other than sitting around and waiting.
I felt like I was practically wasting my vacation.
“Come on,” he urged.
I sighed and got up, making my way toward him down the short flight of steps.
When I got to the short barrier that was separating us, he held up his hands and said, “Come.”
I rolled my eyes and was about to tell him that wasn’t happening when he physically lifted me up and over the fence and sat me unceremoniously on the ground.
“Whoa!” I said, surprised by the sudden movements.
The man was strong.
I kept forgetting how strong, though.
To lift me up and over, that took serious strength.
And let’s just say I hadn’t exactly been willing, so that only made it harder.
“Have you ever thrown a football?” he asked as he handed me the ball.
Where it looked like it fit in his hand, it looked like it was double the size in mine.
“Uh, no,” I said. “A, we didn’t go to school with other kids. B, my dad saw ‘play’ as ‘unnecessary’ and chose not to allow that. C, I have tiny hands.”
Slone’s eyelid twitched. The more I talked to him about my dad, the more he disliked him. He didn’t even have to say a word to relay that message to me.
“Want to learn how to throw it?” he asked.
I was about to say no, but then the look of pure happiness on his face made me reconsider.
“Sure,” I replied hesitantly. “But my hand doesn’t fit all the way around it like yours does.”
“Not even mine fits all the way around it,” he said as he came in closer. I could smell him the closer he got, and just that alone made me want to jump him. I was sure that doing it in the middle of the arena might land him a fine, though. “Here, place your hands like this.”