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’m so glad you’re in town for good again,” Callie said. Her bright red hair was up in two buns, one on top of each side of her head, like a modified Princess Leia. “For the summer, at least. I missed you too fucking much when it was football season.”
“In college we couldn’t go a day without hanging out,” I told her. “I missed you all the time, too.”
“Did you see that guy by the pool earlier, wearing sunglasses?” Callie said, dipping closer to my ear to whisper. “Sunglasses at night. Like, has he not heard that song? Who actually does that kind of thing?”
I snorted. “I did see him. Do you know who he was?”
“One of Rocket’s friends,” Callie said. Rocket was another mutual friend from back in college. “Apparently he swings both ways, which means you and I can fight for his attention tonight.”
Ever since we’d met, Callie and I had discovered we had very similar taste in men. It had been cathartic for me to come out to her—and she was the first person I’d ever told, back in the early days of college.
She’d made it something fun, rather than something shameful. For a long time, she was the only person on Earth who knew I was gay.
“Sunglasses guy is all yours,” I said. “And no, I actually don’t have my eye on anyone yet.”
“Damn,” she said. “Usually you’d have started flirting with somewhere between one and four guys by this point in the night.”
“I know,” I said. “Is something wrong with me?”
“Must be.”
I stretched my arms above my head, still sore from the training earlier. “I tried talking to a couple of guys. One was so nervous to talk to me that he could barely string a sentence together, and then his boyfriend showed up and glared at me like I was the bad guy. Another guy was cute, but started talking nonstop about how much he hated football, and only liked me because he, and I quote, ‘thinks that I’m not like all of the other meathead players.’”
“Yikes,” Callie said. “What did you tell him?”
“That the ‘meatheads’ on the Denver Ferals team are my good friends, and that I needed to go grab another drink. I think he dipped out and left the party right after that.”
“His loss.”
The blaring rap song that had been on the speaker system came to an end, and over the stereo, something familiar started to play.
Ooga, ooga, ooga, chaka.
Ooga, ooga, ooga, chaka.
“Yes,” I whispered. Then, I let out my best party roar. “Let’s go.”
Somebody had put on “Hooked on a Feeling.” My song. It had been my football walk-up song, and it was one that always got me moving.
“Oh, your ass is already shaking,” Callie said, starting to dance. I saw the camera guys from my TV show picking up their equipment, turning a few cameras my way as if they knew something good was about to happen.
“Damn right,” I said before I started singing. “I can’t stop this feeling deep inside of me…”
I was shaking my hips to the song, and I shouted at everyone else to join me, jumping around the pool like a human pogo stick. Soon, half of the people around the pool deck were moving their asses to Blue Suede, and the most recent drink hit my blood.
Nothing else mattered. I was surrounded by a ton of friends. I was dancing, drinking, and living the dream. I shimmied my hips and arms, not giving a single fuck how dumb I might have looked.
Everyone belted out the first chorus along with me, yelling at the top of my lungs.
“I—I—-I’m—hooked on a feeling! I’m high on believing! That you’re in love with me,” I roared over the stereo, the sound of dozens of voices joining mine.
I let out a whoop after the first chorus and twisted around. And just then, as I glanced inside, I noticed that a certain someone had come through the doors while I hadn’t been looking.
Nathan Wood was here.
He’d actually showed up. And he’d been getting a front-row seat to me twerking my ass off.
“Callie,” I called over the music.
“What’s up?”
“Is it bad if it kind of turns me on to have a straight guy watching me shake my ass?”
She snickered. “Very bad.”
I let my hips rock to the beat, hoping like hell Nathan’s eyes were still on me from behind. “Then is it bad that I’m not going to stop?”
She shrugged. “As long as you don’t fall for him, no harm no foul, right?”
I nodded. “My thoughts exactly.”
I wasn’t going to fall for Nathan, because I didn’t let myself fall for anyone, anymore. It was harmless fun to enjoy his eyes on me, even if I knew I was being a little bad.
Easy. Harmless. And hot as hell.
3
NATHAN
I gripped my fingers around the cool glass neck of the wine bottle in my hand.