Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79155 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 396(@200wpm)___ 317(@250wpm)___ 264(@300wpm)
I let out a breath that I hadn’t even known I was holding. It was as if seeing Nathan had flipped some switch in me, releasing some pressure valve that had been keeping me sealed in. There he was, as himself as ever, being adorable, adorkable, and somehow managing to look ridiculously hot in the process.
I pushed open the front door, heading out into the refreshing night air.
“You need a hand?” I asked. “You definitely look like you need a hand.”
Nathan’s eyes met mine and he let out a breath of air, too. “So badly,” he admitted, a sheepish, polite smile appearing on his face. He was wearing a leather jacket I’d never seen him in before, and it made him look almost absurdly hot. “The valet guy was so nice to take my car, but I needed to bring all this inside and I knew I was already late—”
“It’s okay,” I said, shaking my head. I grabbed the bottle of wine in one hand and the bottle of tequila in the other, helping him out. “I’m just glad you came.”
Our shoes crunched over a portion of gravel before we walked onto the stone pathway leading up to my front door.
“Are you?” Nathan asked right before I pushed open the door.
I turned back to look at him. “What do you mean?”
His eyes searched my face. “Are you really glad I came? Because until about two seconds ago I was still doubting whether or not I should have shown my face here.”
I paused and hung back, dropping my hand from the door. The faint sound of crickets filled the air, a brief respite from the activity inside my house.
“I want you to be able to come here anytime,” I told him softly. “I owe you an apology for the other night. We were having a good time, and I went cold on you.”
Nathan watched me like he was a startled animal. “I couldn’t figure out what I did to piss you off.”
His voice was so quiet, so full of true confusion, that it almost broke my heart.
“You didn’t piss me off at all,” I promised him. “It was a fun hookup, and I messed with that vibe. I’m the one who’s sorry. I want to be your friend no matter what, okay? Even if you guys completely screw up my guest house renovation and the damn thing collapses, I’d still be your friend.”
He shifted on his feet. “You bet your ass the renovation is going to be the best work you’ve ever seen,” he told me, one eyebrow raised. “But I get your point. You want to be friends.”
I swallowed over a strange tightness in my throat. My head was swimming with the implications of that word.
Friends.
What did that mean, between me and Nathan? We’d never been friends to begin with. He’d been a hired contractor, and then he’d been one of the hottest hookups in recent memory.
And then he’d been a giant fucking curveball in my life, coming out of nowhere to make me feel things I didn’t think I wanted to feel anymore. Desire, for more closeness than a hookup usually gave me. Frustration, because I really had no idea what Nathan wanted from me, and I knew he also had no clue.
But I wasn’t going to let myself get hurt.
If I was prone to falling for Nathan, it would be better if I didn’t hook up with him at all. No matter how much that pissed me off.
“Friends,” I said with a nod, wishing I knew what I meant by it, too. “Don’t know what else I would be.”
We headed inside to the kitchen, where Nathan set down the long white box. The sound of the party and the TV show filled the background, and as scenes of one of my parties played, everyone clapped and cheered as they saw glimpses of themselves on TV.
“So what’s in here?” I asked as I opened up the top of the white box, looking inside.
Inside was a cake. One of the biggest cakes I’d ever seen, in the shape of a football and immaculately decorated. It even had my new favorite, chocolate-covered pineapples, dotted all along the edges. “Congratulations, Kace, TV Star!” was written at the center.
“Maddy made it and decorated it. Took her all day,” Nathan said, looking at it proudly. “That’s half of the reason I’m late, actually. She kept fussing with the edges.”
The same nervous flutter appeared in my chest again, but this time it felt sweet rather than overwhelming. “Maddy made this?”
“I helped her with the cake itself, but the decorations are all her.”
I bit down on the inside of my cheek, trying to do something to quell the weird wave of emotion flooding me. “I have a whole house full of people watching my show, and yet the thing that ended up getting me emotional is a damn cake,” I told Nathan. “Thank you guys. For fuck’s sake.”