Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 133655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133655 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 535(@250wpm)___ 446(@300wpm)
It’s loud. It’s crowded. It smells like sunscreen, burgers, and the practice fireworks my dad and Gunnar have already shot off.
In the water beside me, Julia floats on a pink flamingo inner tube, looking like summer incarnate. The corner of her mouth curls up as she laughs at something Blake says, and I watch in awe. The sun reflects the lake water in her blue eyes, and her blond hair looks lighter by the day from all the time we’re spending outdoors this summer. She has it loosely tied on the top of her head, and her bright white and red-striped bathing suit sticks partially out of the water as she continues to float on the bright-pink inner tube.
Finn, Scottie, and Lexi have posted up on the deck, watching us through keen eyes and shaded sunglasses, and all the other Hayes siblings are on a mission to the grocery store two counties over for more beef since we’ve already bought out everything within a twenty-five mile radius.
I feel badly for Scottie—wondering if it makes her sad to think about how she would have been in the water with us, swimming, if things were like before. She’s handling it well, and Finn would more than willingly hold her in a doggy paddle of his own for sixteen straight hours if she wanted him to, but I can’t help but feel like this is one of those reminders of her rapidly changing world because of her tragic spinal injury.
Nothing is promised. Nothing is guaranteed.
And if you’re me, you might just realize you’re in love with a girl you’ve known since you were born in one flash of an instant. She’s been texting whatshisface on and off today, and I’ll be fucked if I can’t come up with a way to distract her completely. I need to be funnier. I need to be more interesting. I need to make big moves.
I need to move on to the next phase of Ace’s Plan to Woo Julia.
Especially given that our families are practically the fucking Hatfields and the McCoys since my dad tried to give Kline Brooks a crocodile for his birthday last week. After the big blowout at the Brookses’ house, I ended up taking Crocky to a reptile habitat in the city, where he is now safely living his best life. My dad was annoyed—the big bastard thought we could just keep the fucking crocodile—but when I explained that our pig might end up bacon, he gave up on the wild plan.
Truth be told, the fact that both of our families are even here together is a minor miracle all on its own, one I spent many days and nights facilitating in every way possible, but I am officially behind the curve in the race to be the guy Julia Brooks ends up with one day.
And I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.
I swim over to the edge of Julia’s flamingo, my arms draped over a pool noodle, and look up at her as she tips her sunglasses down the length of her nose. “Your shoulders are getting a little pink,” I tell her. “In a few minutes, we should get out so I can put more sunscreen on for you.”
“Okay,” she agrees easily. “I’ll put some on your shoulders too.”
“Thanks.”
“Who’s going to put sunscreen on my shoulders?” Blake complains, glancing up at the deck to, I assume, Finn and Scottie. I imagine he’s feeling kind of third-wheelish, seeing as all the friends around him are falling in love and stuff.
I laugh a little and jerk my chin up at Lexi, who’s so smart she makes chatting people up while leaning on the deck rail look like a way to tell IQ. Scottie and Finn, God love ’em, look hopelessly dumb compared to her. “How about Lex?”
From the deck, Lexi glances my way at the sound of her name but doesn’t engage. Blake looks like a pig in shit at the suggestion, though, since he’s been crushing on Lexi from the first day he met her at the beginning of fall semester last year. Think brilliant, older woman running the Double C show and in her last year of grad school and the sophomore star quarterback smitten from the moment she didn’t give a shit about who he was, and you pretty much get the gist of Lexi and Blake.
“Now, that’s an idea, buddy,” Blake says with a grin. “One I approve of wholeheartedly.”
Obviously, he’s still very much smitten with Lexi Winslow.
Julia laughs and rolls her eyes, and it makes me wonder if she would do the same if someone told her I was in love with her. For the first time since watching Blake pursue Lexi to great ruin at a Double C event, I find myself rooting for him.