Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 113330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113330 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 567(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 378(@300wpm)
“Of course you do.”
The waitress returns with our cocktails and appetizers, and we dig in.
“What about you?” Iris asks. “Do you have any ‘maybe someday’ dreams you’re still chasing, or is the gym your ultimate dream fulfilled?”
Shit. It was one thing to tell a simple lie about my profession to preserve my anonymity with a one-night stand I thought I’d never see again; but the more time I spend with this woman, the more I’m liking her as a person, which, in turn, makes lying to her harder and harder.
“I’ve still got some dreams I’m chasing. When a person stops dreaming, they might as well be dead. In my book, anyway.”
“I agree completely.” Iris looks at me expectantly, like she’s waiting on me to elaborate on my big dreams. When I don’t, she shifts in her seat and says, “Did you always want to own a gym and train athletes?”
Fuck. “No, I just kind of fell into it.” I clear my throat. “My biggest dream growing up, like every other kid who played football, was to play in the NFL and win the Super Bowl.”
Iris juts her lip in sympathy. “I’m sorry little Roman didn’t get to experience that. But at least you got to play in college, right? That must have been pretty close to the same thing for your inner child.”
I nod my agreement, feeling desperate to end this line of conversation—even though, in reality, as any NFL football player would undoubtedly agree, playing college ball doesn’t compare to being in the pros and couldn’t possibly fulfill any player’s dream of winning a Super Bowl. I mean, the Super Bowl thing is supposition on my part, due to my own three Super Bowl losses. But Marco’s won the Big Game, the lucky bastard, and I know for a fact my cousin feels like that win was the pinnacle of his long and storied career.
The waitress arrives to take the rest of our order, interrupting the current topic of conversation, thankfully. When she leaves, Iris asks, “Were you voted prom king in high school, by any chance?”
“Homecoming king. Why do you ask?”
She’s got a sparkle in her blue eyes. “You played football in college for a well-known school, so I figure you must have been a superstar player at a big high school. You give off extreme big-man-on-campus energy, and I’m dying to know if I’m right.”
I laugh. “Pretty close.”
“That’s how it always goes in movies: The star football player gets voted homecoming or prom king—although in movies, it’s always the star quarterback, not the star tight end, and . . .”
She’s still talking, but I’m too freaked out by her sixth sense to hear the rest. As Iris’s mouth moves, I take a drink of my water and pretend to listen while trying to snuff out the pangs of guilt I’m feeling for lying.
“What about you?” I ask, when I’m able to regain my composure and it’s clear Iris has finished talking. “Were you part of this Hollywood script in high school, too?”
Iris snorts adorably. “Not even close. My high school was so small, we didn’t even have a football team or dances, let alone kings and queens.”
“No dances?” I ask, like it’s a mortal sin. “How are the kids supposed to know who’s crushing on who, then?”
“We had festivals where we figured that out. Not the same thing, but close enough.”
“Not close enough if you ask the kids, I’m sure.”
Iris laughs. “That’s life in a small town for you. We took what we could get.”
“You must have had culture shock when you went off to UCLA.”
“Oh my gosh. In the best possible way, though. I loved everything about my new, big school. Also, about LA in general.”
My stomach clenches at her mention of LA, even though I know I’m the one who brought up UCLA. I’ve been talking to Cameron so much about wanting to make Los Angeles my new home base, I’m worried my face is now somehow giving me away.
“You certainly can’t beat the weather in LA,” I say vaguely, before taking a long sip of my drink.
“Thanks to the good year-round weather,” she says, “there’s always something fun to do. I especially loved going to the beach when I lived there.”
I slide an oyster down my throat, telling myself to take a chill pill. “So, why’d you move to Denver instead of staying in LA after graduation?”
“My ex is from Denver. He wanted to work for his father’s insurance firm, and since I didn’t have a job lined up at the time, I followed him there.”
It’s plain to see the topic is taking the sparkle out of Iris’s blue eyes, so I change the subject. “The great news is, now that you’re single, you can move anywhere you want.”
Iris nods. “My two best friends from college stayed in LA after graduation, so that’s definitely a ‘maybe someday’ kind of place for me. For now, though, I love my job in Denver, so I’m going to keep working hard and saving money for a possible move one day.”