Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 101736 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101736 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 509(@200wpm)___ 407(@250wpm)___ 339(@300wpm)
She looked like she didn’t want to answer me, and her hesitant voice was hushed. “That we only have one lesson left.”
“What are you talking about?” I counted them in my head and realized why my number was different from hers. “The night Colin showed up doesn’t count,” I explained. “We got interrupted.”
“Oh.” A thought occurred to her, and she clearly liked it because a smile climbed into her eyes. “If that’s true, then neither does the night in my room. We got interrupted then, too.”
Huh.
She probably expected me to push back, but—no way. “You know what?” I said. “You’re absolutely right.”
As the date approached, Troy’s launch party became Distinguished Events’ primary focus. We purposefully didn’t schedule anything else the final week leading up to the album’s release. That way, we’d be ready to focus on any issues that arose. So far, everything was going according to plan, and I was doing all I could to make sure it stayed that way.
When Warbler requested two extra cases of hard-to-come-by champagne yesterday? Sure. Not a problem. Or the venue changing its policy and announcing VIPs had to wear wristbands instead of lanyards? I made it happen. I even pretended it was an easy switch, when in reality, it was stressful as hell.
I was sitting in Colin’s living room and had just finished going over the timeline for the event with him when my phone buzzed.
Sydney: I got someone to cover my shift on Thursday. Are you going to tell me what we’re doing now?
Excellent.
Preston: Nope. I’ll pick you up at 7.
Sydney: Really? You’re not even going to give me a hint?
I sent her the emoji of an axe.
Sydney: WTF?
I chuckled, and I did it a little too loudly because it caught Colin’s attention. He lowered the screen of his laptop so he could better look at me.
“Who are you texting?”
His question made the smile freeze on my face and my mind temporarily blank. “Nobody,” I mumbled. “Just a friend.”
Well, shit. That was the worst lie in the history of lies, and I scrambled to come up with something better. Something believable as I locked my screen and set my phone face-down on the table.
I went with the first plausible name I could come up with. “Cassidy.”
Colin stared at me, and a range of emotions played out on his face. Surprise. Confusion. And finally, unease. “You’re texting with your ex?”
I frowned. “Don’t make it sound like that. She texted me because she had a question about the pool. The pump wasn’t running.”
This wasn’t a total lie. Cassidy had sent me a message earlier today asking about this. But it was shitty what I was doing, how I was lying to him.
“Oh.” He accepted my statement, his concern abandoned, and his focus returned to his laptop. I studied my friend for one long, critical moment, and determination built inside me. This conversation was long overdue.
“Guess who I ran into the other day.” I forced casualness into the words, hoping to sound natural.
He didn’t take his eyes off his screen. “Who?”
“Sydney.”
Well, that got his attention. His interested gaze snapped to me. “My sister? Where?”
My heart beat faster. “At the movie theater. We said hi and talked for a minute.”
Actually, we fucked in your dad’s car, and we talked after.
“Yeah? That’s cool.” He nodded but wasn’t all that impressed. Our suburb was small, and running into people you knew happened all the time.
“Remember how she beat me at beer pong at our graduation party?” I asked. “When she’d never even played before?”
“Syd for the win.” His expression shifted as if he were trying to hide his discomfort. “That was the motto in my family.”
His tone was light, but I heard everything he wasn’t saying buried beneath it. Sydney had always been the golden child, even before Colin entered high school. She could do no wrong, and he couldn’t do a damn thing right.
But I never got the impression he resented her for that—only his parents.
“I’m not convinced she wasn’t just lucky,” I said.
He let out a short laugh. “If you played her again tomorrow, I’m telling you, she’d beat you. She always wins.”
It was the opening I was looking for. “So, if I wanted to ask her for a rematch some time, would that be cool?”
Colin blinked, and for a moment, he was sure I wasn’t serious. But the longer my question sat with him, the more worried he became. His smile hung awkwardly. “A rematch?” he repeated, and then sobered. “You mean, like a date?”
I tossed up a hand. “No, of course not.” Shit, I was overcompensating. “I mean,” I sputtered, “I don’t know if I’d call it that.”
His eyes narrowed and his broad shoulders tensed. “Oh, yeah? What would you call it, then?”
Shit. “I just thought we could hang out or something. Me and her.” I tacked it on, but it was pointless. “As friends.”