Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 120189 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 120189 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 601(@200wpm)___ 481(@250wpm)___ 401(@300wpm)
“Chiropractor??” I crouch to gather up my fallen papers.
“Yeah. With all the neck-bending you’re doing, bro. I see you checkin’ out the other interns.”
He knows me way too well. “I’m not checkin’ out anything.”
“Wait ‘til you get a load of Benjamin Gage in the flesh. I hear he’s the hottest shit in town.”
I hug all the papers to my chest and shush him, my face going red. “If someone overhears you calling our boss the ‘hottest shit in town’, I swear I’ll permanently disown you as my best friend, Elijah.”
“Trevor, bro, you are way too uptight. You need to loosen up. Besides, boss man isn’t even here ‘til next week.”
My heart sinks. “Really? Where’d you hear that?”
“Rebekah. So don’t worry about being on your game yet.”
An intern walks past our table—another Adonis with buzzed blond hair and a sharp green tie—and I have to peel my eyes back to the packet I’m trying to salvage. With so many hot guys around me all day long, how am I supposed to complete tasks, impress my superiors, and still manage to do a good job?
And if strapping muscular men are Mr. Gage’s type, then how the heck did I fit in here? I mean, I know I’m not exactly the ugly duckling, but I’m certainly nothing like the others. Except for maybe my best friend Elijah, who is sort of my straight twin with a few minor differences. I have short, dusty blond hair while Elijah’s is dark and messy. He has dark brown eyes that almost appear black and beady while I have grey-blue. My build is slender while Elijah has more meat on his bones, having gained (and kept) the freshman fifteen—and the sophomore and junior fifteen as well. He calls it his “all the more to love” weight. I told him once that I think he looks more attractive now than he did in high school, but all he did was make some joke about his nuts being off-limits … while secretly Googling diets. He thinks I don’t notice him ordering a salad whenever we eat out.
But I notice everything.
“Chiropractor,” mumbles Elijah with a teasing smirk after the blond disappears around the corner.
I shove him lightly (he doesn’t budge) then retrain my eyes to the task at hand. “I do my work even when the boss isn’t here, and that means I have more integrity than you, slacker.” To that, Elijah just snorts, but then he joins me in stapling packets together. “How do you even know Mr. Gage is … hot? He keeps himself out of the press so well, I’ve noticed. The only images I found online were suited up and … strangely sterile. He looks forty-something.”
“Try thirty-three. And I heard he’s hot by word of mouth. I’m already picking up on the office gossip. This is good for us.”
“Sometimes, Elijah, you’re gayer than I am.”
“Yeah? Oh, and Pauline at the front desk is having a potluck on Saturday, and the interns are invited,” he adds jokingly, using his sassiest Southern twang. I just shake my head, chuckling.
I wonder sometimes if I was crazy to agree to all of this. I’m not a spontaneous person, yet I suddenly uprooted my safe and quiet life on campus and chose to move in with my straight, beer-guzzling buddy Elijah for the summer in the heart of big, scary, lit-up downtown. I didn’t hit up a tropical beach with sunlight and seagulls like a normal person, nor did I run off to a sweet, peaceful lakeside cabin for weekly barbecues.
No, I opted for Hell.
That’s right; I actually chose to live in Elijah’s cramped, one-bedroom shoebox, which comes with an ugly orange-and-white cat named Salamander who hates me.
But I did it for a good reason. See, Elijah and I both happened to land the same opportunity of a lifetime: being interns for Gage Communications. The campus where I live—sorry, lived—is exactly an hour and nineteen minutes away, so the commute would have been hell for me. Apparently it’s no big deal for Elijah, as he’s been trekking from his place to the campus for years. He lives just two blocks from Gage Communications, so he offered me his “guest room” (i.e. spare storage room full of old, rusted computer parts and Star Wars memorabilia) and I quickly accepted.
“It’s gonna be so much fun,” Elijah had told me a week ago on the car ride to his place with my things in the trunk. I could hear everything rattling around back there, which worried me the whole way. I clenched up every time he ran over a pothole, and dear Elijah seemed to hit all of them. “You and I in the big city. Interning together. Kicking ass. Those other wannabe interns don’t stand a chance of impressing Mr. Gage like we will.”