Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 133224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 666(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 666(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
She giggles. “Don’t I know it. You should smell it from the inside; I’m about to pass out.” She grabs my hand and pulls me into her house. It’s then that I see Barry the dog pacing in the kitchen.
“What’s he doing?” I frown.
“Walking around like a lunatic.” She flops onto the couch. “He won’t listen to me at all.”
“Barry.” I point to his bed. “In your bed.”
He ignores me and keeps walking around.
“He’s stressed because Hen and Juliet are away.”
“Maybe we should take him back to his house?” I reply.
“He can’t stay there by himself. He’ll calm down.” She gets two bowls out of the cupboard. “I thought you had a date tonight?”
“I rushed out of there to bring you ice cream.” I wink.
“Very funny.” She smiles.
It wasn’t a joke . . . actual facts, and yes, it’s confirmed. I’m a loser.
She dishes out two bowls of ice cream and passes me one.
“I’ll pull the fold-up out; my back is hurting,” I tell her.
My back isn’t sore. That’s a deplorable lie.
I just like lying next to her, and sometimes, if I’m lucky, we even fall asleep this way.
I pull out the couch, and she dives onto it and sits cross-legged as she eats her ice cream. As I watch her for a moment, bright-green face, uneven pigtails in her hair, and flannelette pajamas, I have an out-of-body experience.
Did that really just happen?
Let me get this straight—I pulled out of sex with two of the hottest women on earth to eat ice cream with someone who doesn’t give a shit about how she looks in front of me.
The thought is utterly ridiculous, and I smile over at her.
“What?” She smiles back.
“What is that green stuff supposed to do, anyway?”
“Make me irresistible.”
“To who . . . aliens?”
“Let’s hope.” She puts a huge spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. “So good,” she mumbles with her mouth full.
I take a taste. “Hmmm . . .”
“Don’t forget about the school visit this week,” she reminds me.
“How could I forget? You’ve told me ten million times.”
“Yeah, well. It’s important.”
“Since when is a five-year-old interested in what a doctor has to say?” I reply.
“Since now.” She watches me for a minute and then smiles. “So . . . tell me about your date.”
“Well, the whole time I was there, I was dreaming of ice cream and you, so . . .” I shrug.
“You idiot,” she laughs. “Are you ever serious for one minute?”
More than you know.
“What happened?” she repeats.
“I don’t know.” I sigh. “I’m over dating. I’m over women in general, actually.”
“Since when?”
I shrug, unsure how to answer.
“You know what I think? I think you’re just over playing the field, and you’re getting ready to settle down.”
I twist my lips; the thought is depressing.
“It’s fine. This is a transition period, and you know what transition periods signify?”
“Boredom.”
She gives me a broad, beautiful smile. “New beginnings.”
“Yeah, well.” I keep shoveling in my ice cream. “I kind of liked my life how it was.”
We eat in silence for a while, both lost in our own thoughts.
“You want to watch a movie?” she asks.
“Yeah, I guess.”
“What do you want to watch?” She looks over at Barry. “Barry, in your bed.”
I point to the bed, and somehow, he listens and goes and lies in it.
“See how authoritarian I am?” I reply. “When I speak, he listens. He knows who’s boss around here.”
“Right.” She widens her eyes.
“About time you realize I’m the boss too.” I nudge her with my foot.
“Really?” She nudges me back with her foot. “We both know who’s boss around here.”
I roll my eyes at the irony. The only place I want to be the boss is the one place I’m not.
What a joke.
Two hours later, I lie on my side propped up on my elbow as I watch Rebecca sleep. The movie is on in the background, but I won’t turn it off because then she may wake up and go upstairs to her bed instead of sleeping beside me.
Her dark hair is out and splayed across the pillow. Her olive skin is flawless against the cream linen. My eyes roam over her shoulders, then down to linger on her cleavage.
What is it about this woman?
She’s not a supermodel or a rocket scientist, and hell, she doesn’t even like me that way.
But for the life of me . . . I cannot stop thinking about her.
It’s like I’ve had a spell cast on me, a magical one of infatuation and wonder. If I’m out, all I want to do is rush home to see what she’s doing.
But I don’t know why.
We aren’t like that. We have never been like that. We’re just friends, and she’s right. I know she’s right.
Having her in my life forever means a lot more than a flash-in-the-pan, hot-and-heavy romance.
Hot and heavy.
My eyes drop lower to her bare thigh as it hangs out of the blanket. The definition in her quad muscle calls to me like never before.