Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 85453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 427(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
I stop at number seven. Although it could be anyone’s room, I’m reasonably sure it is McKayla’s. Once we agreed for tonight to be our first lesson, she ended our conversation with, “I am an odd number. Take away one letter and I will be even. What number am I?”
It took me a couple of hours, but I finally solved her riddle. She said take away one letter of an odd number and she will be even.
Seven.
While inwardly chuckling about how tied up her stupid riddle made me, I bang on the door marked with a black seven.
“Just a minute.”
It dawns on me that I never told McKayla our lesson would be outdoors today when I hear the grunts and groans of someone cleaning their room in a hurry. I know it well since I’ve done it on more than a handful of occasions during the last three years of college.
My inward chuckles turn vocal when she grunts out, “Almost there.”
Another handful of seconds pass before her door finally opens. “Hey.” She butts her shoulder on the doorframe like she isn’t flustered before blowing a wayward hair off her face. Its flap alerts me to her makeup-free face and messy half-up-half-down hairstyle. If her lack of effort isn’t bad enough, she is once again wearing clothes three sizes too big.
My beanie sits higher on my head when I shake it. “Yeah, no. This won’t work.”
“What?” When McKayla follows the direction of my gaze, her eyebrows get lost in her hairline. “What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?”
“Ah…” I try to think of something nice to say. When I can’t, I blurt out, “It’s hideous.”
“Yeah, so?” she bites back, not putting up a protest like she’s aware of how ghastly her outfit is. “We’re studying.”
Again, I shake my head. “No. I said our lessons would start today. No one said anything about studying.” When she stares up at me, blinking and confused, I say with a slick grin, “We’re going out tonight. To a party.”
“A party? I can’t go to a party.” She wrings her stained baggy t-shirt to near death. “Especially not dressed like this.”
“Duh,” I push out, stating the obvious before stepping past her to enter her room without permission. “Which one is yours?” I bounce my hand between an overstocked closet on the right and one that looks like it hasn’t been used in centuries. “Never mind. I know which one is yours.”
When I head for the closet on the left, McKayla asks, “How did you know that one is mine?”
I drop my eyes to her linen pants before raising them to her even baggier t-shirt.
Professor Ren is right. She’s smart enough to read minds. “Kaftans are comfortable.”
“When you’re ninety and can’t move anymore.”
She scoffs but doesn’t deny my claim.
It only takes the quickest scrummage through her clothes to realize there is nothing of value in her wardrobe. It is crushed linen after crushed linen after crushed linen.
“I’m not a fan of the iron either, but fuck me, I’d rather wear a crinkled shirt than a material designed to hide your laziness.”
“It isn’t laziness. It is…”
When she can’t come up with an excuse for her ill-choice of clothing, I enter the corridor, hopeful I’ll find a door marked with a sorority club symbol.
Since that doesn’t occur, I shift my focus to a female prowling down the hallway with swinging hips and a sultry grin.
“I need that.” Before the excitement flaring through her eyes turns blinding, I point to her slinky black dress. “How much for the dress?”
She fans a hand across her ample chest. “You want to buy my dress?”
While digging my wallet out of my pocket, I jerk up my chin.
Good things come from having a recognizable face. Before I can pull a single note out of the bundle in my wallet, the brunette says, “You can have it. Cash Mancini doesn’t need to pay to get me out of my dress.”
My eyes snap away from the stranger’s provocative removal of her clothing to McKayla when she mutters, “Cash? I thought your name was Milo.”
The brunette’s expression shifts to disappointed when she realizes I didn’t request to buy her dress to watch her strip. She glares at McKayla with her mouth furled and her eyes narrowed before the recollection of my dislike of bullies finally registers on her face.
She doesn’t snarl at McKayla or spit out any nasty words. She merely hands her the dress as if she’s delivering it on a silver platter before she pivots on her heels and saunters down the hall, hopeful her gallantry will be rewarded in the near future.
“One, I’m not wearing that.” McKayla dumps the dress on the floor she just busted her guts cleaning. “And two, why would anyone hand a dress over like that? What if this was real?” She thrust her hand between us during the ‘this’ part of her reply. “What if we were a couple? She’d have to know she wouldn’t get any benefits from helping me. How could she if we’re a thing?”