Total pages in book: 185
Estimated words: 175455 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 877(@200wpm)___ 702(@250wpm)___ 585(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 175455 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 877(@200wpm)___ 702(@250wpm)___ 585(@300wpm)
He nods his head, giving up his pretense of looking at gift cards and shoving his hands into his pockets. “Yeah. My mom was a freshman in college. Dad was a senior. She was definitely not planned.”
I do the math in my head. “So… she had your sister in college, then you 9 years later, then decided not to have another child until she was 41? Another surprise baby?”
“You have a lot of questions about my life,” he remarks.
His little sister gives up the good fight and rips open the crayons on the front cover so she can start coloring a picture. “There it is. Now you have to buy that coloring book,” I inform him.
“Oh no, how will I ever afford the expense?” he jokes, without even bothering to look.
“How old were you the first time you had sex?” I ask.
He seems to knows exactly where my mind is wandering. He doesn’t answer me, but he does assure me, “She’s not my kid, Zoey.”
“I mean, I would hope not, because you would have been way too young to even have sex—”
“It’s not too young. I was thirteen the first time I had sex.”
That stuns me a little. “You were having sex when you were 13?”
His enlightening response is a shrug. “We don’t all wait until we’re growing gray hair, Ellis. That’s just you.”
I shake my head. “That honestly makes me sad for you. That had to have been truly terrible sex.”
“All you have to compare it to is what happened in that classroom between us. You want to feel sad for someone, save your tears for yourself.”
I frown because he sounds defensive, and people generally only become defensive when they’re feeling attacked. He aims what happened in the classroom at me like it’s a loaded weapon, like he wants to hurt me with the memory. I know it’s absurd to worry that he feels judged, but a pinch of guilt bites me. I do judge Carter for what he did to me, but not for having sex at a young age. It’s just unfathomable to me. I was still such a kid at 13, sex wasn’t even on my radar yet.
“I wasn’t—I just meant—”
Cutting me off, he looks over his shoulder at his little sister. “Squirt, bring that over here.”
“Coming!” She closes the book and pops up off the ground, bringing her coloring book and opened crayons over to the counter.
“You’re not supposed to open stuff when we’re still at the store,” he tells her.
“Sorry,” she says, sounding not at all sorry.
I crack a smile and scan her coloring book, carefully putting the crayons back in their packaging and putting it all in the bag. “Wow, you sure cleaned up today, didn’t you?”
Chloe looks back at the spot she was sitting in, confused, then back at me. “I didn’t make a mess.”
“Oh, no, that’s not—I meant, you sure got a lot of stuff. Carter must be a pretty nice big brother to buy all this stuff for you.”
She nods her agreement and hugs his leg. “Yeah, I love him, he’s my favorite.”
She’s so adorable. Even though he’s the devil, seeing her hug his leg like that tugs on my heartstrings.
Carter grabs one of the gift cards he was playing with and tosses it on the counter. “Load 50 bucks on that, too.”
I scan the card, load it with $50, and read him his new total. He pulls out a credit card and pays the bill like it’s nothing, but it’s more than I will make working here this week. He doesn’t even have a job; he just plays football and goes to school. His parents will undoubtedly foot the bill for whatever he wants now, and then they’ll pay for him to go off to some fancy four year college. I can’t imagine what that must be like.
The printer spits out a receipt and I slip it in the bag, gathering the handles and holding it over the counter. “There you go.”
Carter takes the plastic bag, holding my gaze. “You should come to the game tomorrow night. We’re all going out for food after—a whole group, so you won’t be alone with me,” he adds, as if anticipating that’s a dealbreaker.
“Yeah, I wasn’t alone with you the other day, either,” I remind him. “An audience doesn’t seem to put you off.”
Instead of looking remotely ashamed, he cracks a faint smile. “That’s fair. This is different, though. My ex-girlfriend will be there, and I assure you she would not be down to watch. I’ll behave myself, I promise.”
I shake my head. “No. Thanks for asking this time, I guess, but… no.”
“You’re making this harder than it has to be, Ellis,” he tells me, lowering the bag to his side.
Chloe wastes no time, spreading the bag open so she can reach in and grab her mermaid doll out of it.