Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 102079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102079 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 510(@200wpm)___ 408(@250wpm)___ 340(@300wpm)
“Well,” Isaac pursed his lips, “you’re my future sister-in-law. Right?”
Satan ruined everything good, which wasn’t breaking news. After all, my dad had been preaching about sin and the devil since before I was born. Still, seeing evil in the flesh confirmed all the warnings were valid. Before Isaac came home, I spent most of my free time dreaming of Matt and music. One always led to the other. Matt and I wanted to play under bright lights with throngs of adoring fans—his baseball, mine music.
I blamed Isaac for ruining everything I saw in Matt.
“You’re an awful brother.”
His dark eyes widened. “What did I do? I love Matty.”
“If you loved him, you wouldn’t call him Matty. You wouldn’t treat his good behavior like a flaw. You wouldn’t get his girlfriend drunk and say inappropriate things to her. You wouldn’t ruin his sex life. You wouldn’t write your name on my boob. And you wouldn’t smoke because it’s gross.” I clenched my jaw.
Evil danced in his eyes. “Let’s back up. How did I ruin his sex life? I bought condoms.” Isaac straightened his posture, as if he really needed to exude any more confidence. “And I didn’t ask him to pay me back.”
“That’s”—I wrinkled my nose and shook my head—“not what I meant.”
“Was the sex bad?” He narrowed his eyes, but it didn’t erase the amusement on his face.
“I’m going home.” I spun in the opposite direction. “Keep your stupid guitar, you selfish jerk.” I jogged down the stairs.
“I’ll talk to him,” Isaac said, moseying down the stairs, knowing that he didn’t have to catch me to make me stop. He just needed to say the right thing.
I halted at the front door and backtracked to the stairs, reaching the bottom at the same time as Isaac. “Don’t say a word to him.”
“So it was bad. What happened?” He rubbed his chin.
Despite not being raised to hate anyone or anything, I harbored intense hatred towards Isaac and everything about him.
Because he liked to be an instigator.
Because he was gatekeeping his guitar.
Because he smoked, and smoking was disgusting.
But mostly because I couldn’t stop thinking about him in the most sinful ways.
And that made me feel like a terrible person, an awful girlfriend, and an all-around despicable human—like Isaac.
“Why do you hate me?” I asked.
Isaac’s eyebrows drew together. “I don’t. Why was the sex bad?”
Something hit me hard. I didn’t see it coming, and I couldn’t stop it. Tears burned my eyes, and emotions tingled like little pins pricking my skin, which made Isaac’s grin die on the spot. I loved Matt, even though those three words started to feel generic when I thought of them. But I wanted to love everything about him even if we weren’t going to be together much longer.
It broke my heart that something so intimate and special felt like one of the worst moments of my life. But the thing that broke my heart the most was Isaac seeing right through me.
“Did he hurt you?”
I jerked my head back and blotted the corners of my eyes. “You must love this.” I laughed through my tangled emotions. “No. He didn’t hurt me. Matt would never hurt me.”
Isaac frowned. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
I turned, leaving the house. “If you say one word to him, I’m telling my father you wrote your name on my breast.”
“So that’s how this is going to go? Our friendship will be based on secrets and blackmailing each other?”
“We’ll never be friends.”
“Is it the smoking?”
I rolled my eyes even though my back was to him as I opened my car door.
“What if I don’t say anything to Matty, you don’t say anything to your dad, and I stop smoking?” He followed me to my car.
I scolded myself for thinking that he looked hot in his torn jeans, cowboy boots, and black threadbare shirt with dirt on it. But he did. Isaac looked like the inspiration for every sexy song I imagined singing from a stage surrounded by adoring fans.
“You’re going to stop smoking for me? Why?” I laughed it off, sliding into my car.
Isaac positioned himself between me and my open door, resting his hands on the top of my car. “I think you know why,” he said.
I fidgeted with my car keys. “I love Matt,” I murmured, unsure if I was saying it to Isaac or myself.
“You think you should love him. But you’re going to let him go. It’s the only way you’ll be able to chase your dreams. And in another year, you’ll both look back at your time together with fondness. However, neither one of you will regret not staying together.”
At first, I thought he knew. I thought Matt said something to him, but that was unlikely. Isaac just had an eerie sense of the truth, so I scoffed. “So which is it? Will we be broken up, or will I be your sister-in-law?”