Total pages in book: 67
Estimated words: 64727 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64727 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 324(@200wpm)___ 259(@250wpm)___ 216(@300wpm)
Exciting?
“Who?” My heart went into overdrive and my palms got clammy.
“Ty Czerniak!” she gushed.
Oh.
Okay, so Ty was a popular hockey player with an Internet-famous boyfriend, but he definitely wasn’t my idea of exciting.
I met Ty in the lobby, exchanging routine fist bumps in greeting and introducing him to a starry-eyed Jess before joining him on the sidewalk.
“She likes you,” he commented, waggling his brows.
I rolled my eyes in response and nudged his elbow. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m leaving tomorrow for camp,” Ty said, moving toward my truck. “Actually, I’m taking Walker to the cabin first, and we’re flying out from Syracuse. You can come, but I’m planning on having a lot of sex with my man, and he’s noisy.”
“That’s a hard pass.”
Ty snickered. “Did you get Brady’s text? He’s in town too. Let’s get a beer. You can catch us up on the new stuff in Gus-land. I still can’t believe you’re teaching English. Coaching…yes. All day long. I swear you’ll have Beekman’s job in a couple of years. Brady wants to go to The Tavern or Vincento’s—”
“I don’t drink,” I blurted…in a parking lot on a summer day in early July.
And nothing happened.
The sky was still blue, traffic whizzed by as usual, the delivery person balancing two packages didn’t falter, and Ty didn’t bat an eyelash.
“I didn’t think so,” he replied cryptically. “We’ll go to your place, then.”
He walked to his Jeep before I could protest, and I didn’t have the energy to anyway.
I set two water bottles on the island while my friends snooped around my condo.
“This is like…nice,” Brady pronounced, sounding a little confused. “Are you sure you live here?”
I flipped him off from my perch on a barstool at the island and uncapped my water. “Are you hungry? I have chips and…that’s probably it.”
Brady flopped onto the stool next to me. “I guess you do live here.”
“Ha. Ha.”
Ty rolled his eyes. “Well…”
I glanced at my friends, sized up the situation, and came up empty. I had no reason not to be honest.
“I quit drinking and using…everything,” I said. “It was touch and go in the beginning, but I’ve been sober for over three months and it’s tough, but it was a good change for me. A necessary one.”
Brady furrowed his brows. He was dressed for the pool in Hawaiian print boardshorts and a ripped Bears tee, looking more like a California surfer than a hockey player on hiatus. “Why?”
I shrugged. “I was tired of waking up hungover every day. I was tired of not remembering what I’d done or said or who I’d been with. I supposedly had a lot of sexy encounters with a girl whose name I couldn’t tell you to save my life. And that was disturbing. I wanted to get on the wagon before there was a court mandate sending my ass to rehab. In case you’re curious, I did that once, and it’s not fun.”
“What? When?”
“Senior year of high school. I crashed my dad’s Beamer into our mailbox, high as a kite. I was the only one in the car, and it was our property, so authorities didn’t get involved, but my folks thought I needed a cleansing. It was probably the right thing to do…it just didn’t stick.” I rubbed my hand over my jaw and sucked in a breath. “Almost seven years later, I was in worse shape than ever.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry.” Ty slumped in the stool. “I should have…known.”
“I think we did know, but weren’t sure how to address it,” Brady commented thoughtfully. “I’m sorry too. We let you down.”
“Fuck that. I’m not your responsibility. You didn’t do anything wrong.”
“But we could have rallied and made it easier instead of hounding you about the next party, for fuck’s sake,” Ty practically growled as he leaned forward. “We’re your friends. We care about you, Gus. I hate thinking that you’ve been suffering while we’ve been—”
“Whoa, tiger. I haven’t been suffering. Rafe was here and…” I trailed off, my tongue suddenly thick with despair.
Brady and Ty shared a look.
“Rafe.” That was Ty.
“Are you and Rafe…like…together?” Brady ventured cautiously.
“No. He’s training. He’s going to be a figure-skating star someday.” I smiled, cocky and proud of my…friend.
“Okay, but—”
“There’s no but,” I intercepted. “Rafe is—we…yeah, but…it’s not something we could sustain, ya know?”
Ty shook his head. “No, I don’t know. You obviously care about him, and—”
“I do, and that’s why I have no intention of saddling him with me.” I pointed at my chest in case they’d forgotten who I was referring to. “I have too many issues, and I’m here and he’s…not. I don’t like it. It sucks and I’m not happy about it, but I have to let him go.”
“Sounds like you’re punishing yourself,” Ty observed matter-of-factly. “Like maybe you think you should suffer for your past sins.”
Okay, that was possibly a little bit true.