Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123435 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 617(@200wpm)___ 494(@250wpm)___ 411(@300wpm)
“The babbling never ends with you, does it, ginger?”
“Don’t call me ginger, Gate.”
He jabs the air with his finger. “No. Absolutely not. That is not becoming a thing.”
“What’s the matter, Gate?” I ask sweetly. “Did someone give you a nickname you don’t enjoy?”
“Call me that again and I’ll murder a turtle right in front of you.”
“You wouldn’t dare.” I grin at him. “Oh! Speaking of turtles. My dad messaged earlier, and guess what—my stepmother agreed to the turtle. They’re planning to give it to the girls after their birthday party in a couple weeks. The twins are going to die of excitement.”
“Isn’t your birthday coming up soon too?”
He remembered that?
My heart skips a beat, but I pretend to be unaffected. “Also in a couple weeks,” I confirm. “My sisters and I share a birthday.”
“Damn. Let me guess—somehow you’ve managed to find a silver lining for that too?”
“Yup.” I nod at his hands. “You gonna open that bottle, Gate?”
“Gate is not becoming a thing,” he growls, before turning in a safe direction to pop the cork. A moment later, he pours the bubbly liquid into our flutes, hands me one, and settles in the chair beside me.
As we sip our champagne, I try to ignore the pounding of my heart. The dampness of my palms. This feels like a date, even though I know it’s not.
To hammer it home to my silly, smitten brain that such thoughts are counterintuitive, I force myself to say, “I’m going out with Aaron again tomorrow.”
“Ah, right.” Tate chuckles quietly. “Tongue battles part two.”
“God, I hope not.”
“We practiced for this. If it happens again, you’re saying something,” he warns.
“I will,” I promise.
“And let’s just hope kissing isn’t the only activity he’s bad at.”
I straighten up in alarm. “Oh no. Oh no. I was planning to let him go to second base. Nobody can be bad at second base, can they?”
Tate drinks some more champagne, mulling it over. “He could be an aggressive tit squeezer.”
I blanch. “If he is, I’ll have no choice but to say something, because that’ll earn him an involuntary scream of pain. The girls are sensitive.”
Tate’s eyes briefly flick my way. “Are they?” he drawls.
“Yes. Very.” My throat is suddenly dry.
His must be too, because he chugs the rest of his glass and then pours himself another one.
“Easy, partner,” I caution.
“Don’t worry. Look how tiny these glasses are. It’ll take a lot of refills to get me even close to drunk.”
He has a point. So I hold out my own tiny glass, and he tops it off with that playful smile I’m beginning to crave on a daily basis. While we lie there on the dock, my gaze drifts up to the sky, sweeping over the twinkling carpet of lights.
“It’s incredible how clear the sky is out here,” I remark. “In Boston, the sky is different. All the pollution in the air, I guess. You hardly ever see any stars.”
“I love it. Especially when you’re on the open ocean. No land anywhere around you, this huge sky above you. That could freak anyone out, looking around and seeing nothing but water. But the stars, right? They’re always there. They’re fixed. You can’t get lost when you can see the stars. Can’t lose yourself.”
“Holy shit,” I accuse. “You’re actually into stargazing? I assumed that bio they read at the auction was bogus.” I snicker. “He’s a romantic at heart and enjoys long walks on the beach.”
“Nah, that part was BS. Whoever wrote the intro decided to improvise.” He shrugs. “I listed four interests on the questionnaire they emailed, and all of them started with an S. Maybe they didn’t like that.”
“Four S’s …” I start to list them. “Sailing. Surfing. Stargazing. Wait—what was the fourth?”
“They didn’t read it.”
I eye him curiously. “Why? What was it?”
“Sex.” He winks.
My face almost bursts into flames, which isn’t a favorable thing because I was already burning up from the alcohol. I don’t even want to know what color my cheeks are right now.
Between the two of us, we’ve officially polished off an entire bottle of champagne. He’s ingested more, but my tolerance is shit and the champagne loosens my tongue.
“Yeah … I don’t have much experience with that,” I confess.
Tate is already removing the foil from the second bottle. He stops for a second and meets my eyes. “You’re a virgin.”
“Man, you drop it like a statement of fact,” I say dryly. “Not even a question, huh? What, is it written on my forehead or something?”
“Nah. Just an educated guess.”
I stick out my glass for another top-up. “Well, the answer to the non-question is yes, I’m a virgin. I’ve done other things, though.”
“Is that right?” Eyes dancing, he cocks his head at me.
“Don’t you dare tell me to spill the tea.”
“C’mon, let’s hear it, ginger. Whatcha done?” When I remain quiet, he chugs nearly half his fresh glass. “All right, then. I’m going to start guessing. Okay. So. I know you’ve made out.”