Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 418(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 418(@300wpm)
“You better not!”
I jerk back. I wasn’t expecting a little jealous dragon in Remy, but I like it more than her chai latte snort. “Tell me what you really think, Remy,” I tease, feeling a little cocky too.
“Will you?” she asks sharply, not playing games.
I don’t play either as I look her in the eyes again and say, slowly and clearly, “No. Fucking. Way.”
She lifts her chin. “Same for me.” She slides in an orange puzzle piece with a flourish.
God, she’s hot when she’s jealous. But her anger seems to cool as her eyes go thoughtful. “But what happens when this ends?”
My chest squeezes sharply, like someone’s tied a rope around it. I know it’ll have to end. That’s always been the plan. And the plan is to treat the end with the respect she deserves. “It’ll be controlled. It’ll be easy, since we’ve planned it. It won’t be on a Jumbotron. I won’t make you a fool,” I say, in a promise that feels as important as any other one.
“I’d like that,” she says, then takes a sip of her chai, sets it down, and hunts for another piece, finds it and puts it in place.
I do the same, and soon we’ve finished our drinks and completed the puzzle.
I can’t stop the clock anymore. “I should go…get a puzzle for my dad,” I say, a little sheepishly.
“I like the dogs-with-jobs one.”
“I’ll get that.” I grab it and buy it.
On the way out, she turns to me and says, “Will you tell your dad we spent time together here?”
It’s an easy answer. “I will.”
“Will you tell him it was a date?”
“Unless you don’t want me to?”
Her mouth goes soft. “If it makes him happy, you should.”
It’s said as if she already cares about this person she’s never met. The person my mother left, along with my brother, Clem, and me.
I swallow roughly. “It will,” I say, and that’s more vulnerable than I’d planned to get tonight. But my fake girlfriend seems to have that effect on me.
14
SUCH A BAD LIAR
LAKE
My dad’s already sound asleep when I get home.
But Gavin isn’t. He’s in the stables, checking that stall doors are closed for the night, and after he tells me that Dad went to bed, he asks, “You got any time in the morning before you go to practice? There’s a new owl box for the bird sanctuary. Can you hang it?”
“Course I can,” I say as he secures the stall door for Nutmeg, then pats her on the muzzle.
He brushes one hand against the other then tugs off his gloves. “Good. Just don’t fall, like you fell on the ice the other night.”
I flip him the bird. “Why don’t you try to do your job in skates? Also, the D-man slammed into me. I got back up like that,” I say with a snap of my fingers.
Gavin cracks up, bending over at the waist. “Oh, man, it’s so fun giving you hell. You’re so sensitive.”
“I am not sensitive,” I say, my brow narrowed.
He stops laughing, but keeps smiling as we head out of the barn. “Right, sure. But if you’re worried you don’t have the balance to do it, you can muck the stalls instead.”
“I said I would hang the owl box.”
“But if you can’t manage it, there’s horseshit to shovel,” he says as he yanks one big door closed.
I pull on the other one. “Why have enemies when you can have a brother?”
“Might as well have both. More fun for me,” he says with a wiggle of his brows as he strides across the grass, away from the home.
He stares at the property in the dark, then sighs, the satisfied sound of a job well done.
“You know—I’m happy to help around here,” I say seriously. “If you want me to do more.”
“I know,” he says, kind and full of understanding. “But the bird stuff is more than enough.”
Is it though? Sure, I know he and Mira like running Big Steps. A familiar pang of guilt twists inside me. Like I could help more. Or maybe it’s just a memory of how happy my dad was before things started breaking. When Heather used to stay with me at the ranch before we fell apart.
Back before Dad stood in the open door one day, then said quietly, “I don’t think I can go out.”
My heart aches thinking of that moment.
I pull myself out of those thoughts right as Gavin looks me up and down with skepticism. “Why do you look like you’re a frat boy?”
I’m wearing slacks and a white linen shirt. “I don’t look like a frat boy.”
“Country club guy. Same thing,” he says with a hint of derision since we are neither. We didn’t grow up with enough money for golf courses and tennis matches, and I never joined a frat, nor wanted to.