Total pages in book: 218
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 209489 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1047(@200wpm)___ 838(@250wpm)___ 698(@300wpm)
I didn’t even have to glance over to know what she was talking about. “I know,” I agreed. Oh, I knew.
Twenty minutes later, with my computer in tow, I headed through the mall and followed the signs to the food court. There were so many stores. So many people. I’d been to malls a couple times before—behind my grandparents’ back because there were too many people—but I’d never seen so many people at one.
Plus, I had a card in my hand from a bank I’d never heard of. What was up with this family and their special credit cards and foreign debit cards? How much money did you have to have to qualify for one? Would Alex tell me?
Part of me had expected the cashier to ask for my ID or call the cops, but he hadn’t even made eye contact when I’d paid.
Clutching my heavy bag tight, I moved through the mall slowly, taking in everything. I was already worn out. At the food court, I used the last of the ten dollars that Selene had loaned me on a cinnamon coffee drink with drizzled chocolate over a mountain of whipped cream. Taking a seat at a table, I sipped on my drink and kept an eye out.
I didn’t have to wait long.
I’d only been sitting there a minute when I spotted the tall body striding through the crowd.
I bit my lip and kept watching that long frame move. I also got to witness how the women he passed reacted. Some of them totally stopped to check him out, and some of them tried to be discreet but checked him out anyway. I couldn’t blame them. I couldn’t blame them at all.
I smiled as we made eye contact. There was a big department store bag over his forearm and another smaller bag that looked like it may or may not have a shoebox in it. I didn’t take him to be a shopper, but he was still one of the great mysteries of the world, apparently. I held the drink out and he took it, instantly putting the straw between his lips and taking a big sip.
“Did you get what you needed?” I asked, not even trying to be sneaky about staring at his bags.
He narrowed those blue eyes, and I was pretty sure he held the bags closer as he nodded. “You?”
Of course that was all he was giving me. “Yes,” I told him, disappointed.
He smirked.
I didn’t trust it.
“Ready to go?” he asked, holding the coffee out.
I nodded and took it as I got up, picking up my own bag from where I’d stashed it between my legs because I didn’t trust someone to not run up and steal my things. Stopping beside him, I peeked at his bag, and he definitely pulled it even closer to his side.
“Nosy,” he said, his fingers brushing mine as he plucked the strap out of my hand.
I tried to take it back. “I can carry it.”
“You need to work out those puny arms,” he said, tugging it out of my hand again. “But you still smell sick. Let me carry it.”
He was right on that part. Walking through the mall had worn me out. “Okay,” I said, letting go. “But question.”
I was pretty sure his mouth twitched.
That was my cue to keep going. I dropped my voice. “Does that even feel like anything to you? You know, because you’re so strong?”
Those eyes that weren’t as dark blue as they’d been half an hour ago flicked toward me as we walked back the same way I’d come. He made a thoughtful sound. “It’s more work for me to carry this because I have to think about not overdoing it, than it is for me to….”
“Pick up an eighteen-wheeler?” I asked, referring to a video of him carrying a semi that had driven off a bridge a few years ago. He’d just happened to be at the right place and time, on the way back from an incident off the coast of California that I couldn’t remember.
Alex nodded. “Yeah. That’s nothing too.”
I whistled. “And I think I’m a bad shit when I finally open a jar that’s a pain in the ass.” I raised my arm and flexed, even though he couldn’t see anything under the big jacket.
He flicked that strange but beautiful gaze over to me. “I break jars as much as I open them,” he admitted quietly.
I bet. “What’s the heaviest thing you’ve ever lifted?”
That smooth forehead furrowed, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw a couple of girls coming toward us, tilting their heads in our direction, their eyes glued to Alex.
He didn’t notice, or if he did, he ignored it.
“A fully loaded cargo ship.”
“Was it hard?”
He looked at me and raised an eyebrow.
So it was like that? I reached over and squeezed his forearm.