Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 89519 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89519 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 448(@200wpm)___ 358(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
After carrying her through the woods, tripping all the way back to the cottage? After going for a late-night swim? Fucking her in the yard? Feeling great, for the most part.
“Surprisingly good. I need to check in with my trainer today, give him an update. But yeah, can’t complain.” I sip my coffee. “Maybe it’s all the sex that’s doing my body good.”
Annabelle rolls her eyes. “What are some of your red flags?”
Easy. “I drink out of milk cartons—but in my defense, I live alone, so it’s my fucking milk.”
She laughs. “Fair.” Pause. “What else?”
“Hmm. I talk to myself. Out loud. Especially when I’m pissed off or working out. Mostly grumbling.” I grin. “Also, I hate texting back. Real bad at it.”
She narrows her eyes. “Ah. So you’re one of those.”
“Terrible,” I confirm. “Don’t take it personally.”
There’s a pause—one of those lingering, charged silences where we both sip our coffee but neither of us breaks eye contact. Now she’s biting her bottom lip like she’s fighting a smile, and I can feel the pull of her across the table. The low burn of comfort and tension simmering at the same time.
I clear my throat. “Your turn. Red flags?”
She exhales. “Okay. I overthink everything. I rewatch comfort movies over and over. For example, I’ve seen How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days at least forty times. And I talk during movies.”
She talks during movies? That’s the worst. “Wow.” I lean back, hand over my heart. “You might be the true monster in this marriage.”
Annabelle rolls her eyes again. “Ha ha, funny.” She meets my gaze, raising her brows. “I’ve got more.”
“More?”
She grins. “I have a terrible memory for names, but I’ll remember what someone was wearing on a random Tuesday in 2019. Also, I once fake cried to get out of a speeding ticket.”
I lift my mug in salute. “Respect.”
Annabelle laughs, shaking her head. “Your turn. Give me another one.”
“Fine.” I think for a beat. “I once broke up with a girl because she ate string cheese like a psychopath.”
Her face scrunches. “How do you eat string cheese like a psychopath?”
“She bit it. Like it was a stick. Just—Chomp.” Not cool, not okay.
She gasps, truly horrified. “No stringing?”
“Nope.”
Annabelle leans forward, resting her chin on her palm, expression somber. “Okay, serious question.”
I raise a brow. “Hit me.”
She pauses, eyes soft. “Do you think we’re actually compatible? In real life?”
I’m confused. “This is real life.”
Her head shakes back and forth. “No it’s not—this is like Love Island. All smoke and mirrors and fantasy dates.”
“First of all,” I correct her. “If this were Love Island, there’d be at least three cameras in our faces and someone yelling ‘I’ve got a text!’ every ten minutes before a new bombshell enters the villa.”
“I’m just saying . . .” She trails off, toying with the edge of a napkin she plucked from the center of the table. “It’s easy to like someone when everything is beautiful weather and there’s sunshine and lake swims and crashing a wedding reception. But when we go back to our real lives—you’ll go back to being a football star, and I’ll go back to Star Lake and being a wedding planner for other people.”
I nod slowly, heart thumping, trying to find the right words. “You’re not wrong. This place is its own little bubble. But I don’t think what’s happening here is fake. I don’t think you are fake. And I sure as hell know that I’m not pretending to like you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean—I meet a lot of people, being . . .” Jeez, how do I put this? “A sort of celebrity, and it’s been a long fucking time since I’ve had this much fun with a woman.” I shift in my seat. “If we’d met in a bar, or at a party, I would be texting you for a date so fast.”
Her head tilts. “What makes you so sure?”
Easy. “’Cause you would have rolled your eyes at me, not been impressed, probably thrown a drink in my face—and I would have loved every second of it, because very few people are honest with me.” My friends, yes. Women, no. “Does that make sense?”
Annabelle nods slowly, and I want to pull her in my lap and kiss the frown off her face. But instead, I stay where I am to give her space.
My phone buzzes, and I ignore it.
“You wanna take a shower?” I ask her. “Might make you feel better.”
My phone buzzes again.
Annabelle looks at it. “Sure. I’ll shower, and you can call your trainer and handle . . . your stuff.”
Stuff.
I wait until she leaves the table and the door to the bathroom clicks shut before finally flipping over my phone.
Nine notifications.
Two from my trainer. Five from random friends. One from the Sentinels group chat.
My phone is blowing up.