Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 148962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 745(@200wpm)___ 596(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 745(@200wpm)___ 596(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
“I understand it’s hard for you to be around him, Gabs. We can minimize your interactions as much as possible if that’s the problem.”
“It’s not that.” I sigh. “Romeo and I will have to find a way to co-exist. I just need some time to get used to the idea of him being involved.”
“You’ll figure it out.” She gives me a sad smile. “This war can’t last forever.”
“Yeah, I guess so.”
Except…it’s already been nine years.
8
ROMEO
[ENTRY 002] — SYSTEM SCAN
> Observation: catastrophic blue balls.
> Effect: self-control degrading.
> Containment protocol: tie her to the bed and fuck her until the end of time.
> Note: does she ever wear a bra…or own a full-length shirt, for that matter?
When I open the door to Gabi’s bedroom, her bathroom door is shut, and I can hear the shower running. Beppe blinks up at me, letting out a huff of excitement as he comes to greet me.
“Hey, runt.” I scratch his head, and he wags his tail as I pull a treat from my pocket and give it to him.
Happy with his score, he runs back to his blanket to gnaw on it.
I set the bouquet I brought for Gabi on her nightstand, and when I glance over at her bed, I freeze. The giant stuffed teddy bear peeking out from beneath the blankets catches me off guard.
At first, I think I’m imagining the similarities, but when I pull back the covers, I can see that I’m not.
It’s well-worn, the fur faded and threadbare in some spots, the stitching nearly coming apart at the seams in others. Despite my brain being nuked that day, the memory of what came before the strike still lingers.
We rode every ride at the fair, and I chased her through the funhouse while she screamed the entire way. Maybe it was the wolf in me, but that sound hardwired itself into my DNA, satisfying a primal need I hadn’t even known existed.
When I caught her, I pressed her up against the mirrored wall, both of us breathless. All I wanted to do was crush my lips against hers. I’d thought about it relentlessly when I palmed my cock in bed every night. But even then, there was a part of me that felt like I might ruin her.
So instead, I took her to the shooting gallery and played until I won her the biggest prize they had. She looked at me like I was her hero when the attendant handed it to her.
Staring at it now, I’m not sure what to make of it. She’s been hiding it somewhere, though I wouldn’t know where. For all my moral failings, I have enough decency not to have a camera in her bedroom.
I could argue that it means something, but Gabi has always loved anything soft and fluffy. Besides that, there’s the small, irritating as fuck detail that she’s been writing about some other guy in her journal, and I don’t know who the hell he is.
She wants to keep things ‘casual’ because of him, and that alone is enough to earn him a place on my hit list.
There’s an entire playlist on her phone dedicated to him, and the way she describes him in her journal doesn’t help.
Brivido (Bree-vee-doh): a shiver, shudder, or thrill.
If he were a shark, he would have been a megalodon—built for destruction.
The way he looks at me hijacks my entire nervous system.
Feeling his presence before I even see him.
Words that settle under my skin.
When he’s in my orbit, I can’t concentrate on anything else.
If he were a song, he’d be C.O. by R&C.
Everything she writes about him is abstract and sensory-heavy, and for someone who analyzes patterns all day long, I can’t figure it out. But that’s probably a good thing. I doubt she’d ever forgive me if I killed her crush.
In the years since I basically told Gabi to fuck off, I’ve tried to do the right thing and let her move on. I probably sped up the process by being an asshole to her at every turn. I knew eventually, she’d find someone else. He was always some mythical, distant creature that I’d fucking despise no matter what. Whenever I considered her future, I fantasized about ripping his throat out, whoever he was. But it always felt like I had time before that happened.
The future has a tendency to sneak up on you, though, and now she’s engaged to my dipshit cousin and crushing on some other random asshole.
It bothers me that I don’t know who she interacted with before I started watching. There’s no record of him anywhere on her phone, so they must have only talked at school. But since that was pre-Julian, I have no way of knowing who it could be.
The fact that she’s still pining for him, though? That’s a fucking problem.