Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 115590 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 578(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115590 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 578(@200wpm)___ 462(@250wpm)___ 385(@300wpm)
“You gonna stay here tonight?” I asked.
“Yes. Please.” On a sharp exhale, her fingers splayed across my chest. “My mom moved Jerry in.”
Every muscle in my body tensed. That piece of shit. I didn’t want Monroe over there. “You know you don’t have to go back there.”
“You want me hanging around your house all the time?”
“You already do.”
She swatted at my stomach. “It’s fine. I can handle Jerry for a few months.”
I tightened my jaw. Her need to pretend she could manage something she couldn’t irritated the shit out of me. Then what she had said dawned on me. “A few months?”
“If I get into a college, yeah.”
And then she would leave.
“Hey.” She moved, the mattress springs creaking when she dug her chin into my chest, then looked up at me. “It won’t change anything, Zepp.”
“I didn’t say it would.”
“You didn’t have to.” She cocked a brow.
Seconds ticked by, thoughts weighing heavy on my mind while I stared at the ceiling. “If you could get an offer anywhere, where would you want to go?”
“Dixon is my first choice. It’s at the beach.” A kink formed in my stomach. It was a good thing I had swallowed those words down earlier.
“Yeah…”
“Zepp…” She touched my cheek, turning my face toward hers. “I probably won’t even get an offer. Let's just cross that bridge if we get there.”
Cross it and fall straight off the edge. But whatever. I kissed her forehead. “Yeah. Sure.”
Her eyes narrowed for a moment. Her teeth bit into her lower lip. “You’re still thinking about it.”
I squeezed her tighter. Somehow, in the matter of a month, she had become everything to me, and I had no idea how I was supposed to let that go. “I’m thinking about pizza.”
She smirked. “You’re a horrible liar.”
I focused on the ceiling again, sweeping my fingers over her back for a few minutes. There were two colleges a hell of a lot closer than Dixon… “Why Dixon?”
“I don’t know. Go to the beach. Run away.”
That gave us eight months, maybe. I bit at my lip, thinking it was easier when I didn’t give a shit.
“I’ve always been living for the day I could get out.” Her finger tapped my chest. “Until I jacked a car off this asshole, and now he’s kind of become a problem.”
“A problem, huh?”
“All kinds of trouble,” she said.
“I have the same kind of problem with this redhead. She’s turned me into a pussy.” I shifted on the bed, turning to face her.
Monroe had made me the kind of guy I used to despise, the kind who would do anything for a girl, regardless of what it meant for him.
28
Monroe
Mine and Zepp’s conversation had played through my mind on repeat.
It didn’t take a genius to see it bothered him. I was going to college; he wasn’t planning to. If I was honest with myself, I didn’t want to leave him, either. There was no doubt anymore that I loved him, and love had made me weak. But more than that, it made everything else seem unimportant. I’d dreamed of getting out of Dayton my whole life, but suddenly, it wasn’t this awful place I’d always seen it as. Because he was here. But he didn’t have to be. Zepp didn’t want to go to college, but he also didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. He’d never had any opportunity, and he had no idea how talented he was.
Zepp had gone outside to work on one of the cars, and I sat on his couch, reading over the webpage for the Elizabeth Roux School of Art in Florida. Before I could think it through too much, I clicked on the contact tab and typed out an email, attaching a picture I’d taken of his sketchbook a couple of days ago. It was a picture he’d drawn of me, not the best one, but the least invasive to his privacy, I thought. I hesitated before clicking send. Would he be annoyed that I’d showed one of his drawings to someone else? He didn’t show them to anyone. Then again, what if they offered him a place in their school? That had to be worth it. I clicked send, holding my breath until I heard the little ding that signaled it had gone, no taking it back. The worst they could say was no, in which case I’d never tell him.
The front door banged closed, and Hendrix rounded the living room doorway. “Where’s Zepp?”
“Out back.”
He nodded. “Wanna come to Taco Casa for lunch?”
For the past three nights, all we had eaten was pizza, so I was game. “Sure.”
* * *
Wolf and Bellamy already had a table by the time we walked into the brightly lit Mexican restaurant. I slid into the booth between Hendrix and Zepp while Wolf mumbled something about Barrington, his fist balled on the table.