Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 110624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110624 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 553(@200wpm)___ 442(@250wpm)___ 369(@300wpm)
“So, what’s Tarah like?”
Ryan blushed. “She’s really cool.”
“She is not with Jake, by any chance, is she?” I asked, thinking about the rendezvous I overheard earlier.
“Hell no! Why would you ask that?” he snapped.
“I was just wondering.”
“Trust me, there is nothing going on between Tarah and Jake.”
“And that’s because…?”
Ryan’s face turned red again, and he gave me a look that answered my question.
“Tarah…and you?” I asked.
He smiled. “Yup.”
“Really…”
“Yeah, it’s new…six weeks now. Wait ‘til you meet her. She’s awesome.”
“Nice, Ryan. I am so happy for you. But what if it doesn’t work out? I mean, you’re living together. Wouldn’t that be weird?”
“Probably. But I can’t worry about that right now.”
“Well, I can’t wait to meet her.”
“I think you two will get along really well. She’s a hair colorist for a salon in the city. She’s working until close tonight, but she should be home around nine.”
I suddenly yawned, and then my stomach growled. “I am starving, but I haven’t had a chance to food shop.”
“No need. Let’s go downstairs to Eleni’s. My treat. Phenomenal Greek food.”
“I know. I smelled it on the way in here.”
As Ryan and I headed downstairs, I heard the same swearing from the apartment below us. The woman seemed to have a Jamaican accent.
“What is up with the lady on the second floor?” I asked.
“Oh, you just wait. That is just another benefit of living here, Troll. If I tell you, it will ruin it,” he said laughing.
“Okay, I am not even going to ask.”
***
After a fantastic dinner of Greek salad and chicken skewers, we returned to the apartment to have the baklava pastry the owner, Telly, gave us to welcome me to the neighborhood. After just one meal, I already knew I would need to limit my Eleni’s intake, or I was going to go broke and get fat.
I brewed a pot of coffee as Ryan got out the plates, and we reminisced about high school.
“So, Troll, no boyfriend at the moment?”
I sighed. “No. I was seeing someone at home for a few weeks, but I just wasn’t feeling it. Then, knowing I was about to move away, I decided to break it off. It wasn’t worth the effort.”
“Well, they can’t all be like Stuart, can they?”
Stuart was my first boyfriend in high school. He was sensitive and sweet and the constant butt of Jimmy and Ryan’s jokes.
“Ugh…did you have to bring him up? Poor Stuart. He was awesome, though.”
Ryan snickered. “He was a friggin’ girl. Stuart and his paper birds! What was it he used to do?”
I giggled recalling the memory. “Aw, Stuart was the sweetest thing. He knew the combination to my locker, and he would create these little ornate origami birds out of construction paper. Then, I would unfold them, and there would be these little poems that rhymed inside each one. It was romantic.”
Just then, footsteps crept up behind us, and a deep raspy voice that cut through me said, “That is…the STUPIDEST fucking thing I have ever heard.”
When I turned around, the immediate but unwanted reaction my insides felt at the sight of him told me I was in trouble.
Reality Show Scene Three, enter stage left: hot womanizing roommate.
Then, came the three words that would change my life. “Hi, I’m Jake.”
CHAPTER 2
Jake stuck out his tattooed-covered arm prompting me to take his hand and flashing a smile that could only be described as devilish. “You must be Neenee,” he said.
I coughed nervously, and a weird sound came out of my mouth that I couldn’t quite identify. It might have been my body saying, Well lookey here, she isn’t dead from the waist down after all.
He was freaking beautiful.
“It’s Nina, actually,” I said shaking his calloused hand, noticing a silver thumb ring. The warmth of his skin in the brief contact didn’t escape me, nor did the fact that my hand lingered longer than it should have. It might have trembled.
“I know your name. I’m just fucking with you.” He flashed a wicked grin and winked. My body’s reaction to that made me question my own sanity.
He smelled like a mixture of cigarettes and cologne, which was oddly arousing. He had a brow ring and a bottom lip ring, and his incisors were very pointed and sharp. His eyes were green with gold speckles, brought out even further by his contrasting short dark hair.
Come to think of it, Jake was like a black cat – gorgeous, but very likely bad luck if it crossed your path.
“Nice to meet you, Jake.”
He leaned against the kitchen counter, crossing his arms and gave me a once-over that sent a shiver down my spine. “So, who is Stuart, why is he making you origami bird poems, and who cut off his balls?”
I laughed. “Stuart was my boyfriend freshman year of high school. Ryan decided to bring him up now for no good reason.”