Total pages in book: 244
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236705 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1184(@200wpm)___ 947(@250wpm)___ 789(@300wpm)
I get you, girl. Oh yes, I do.
“Awww. I’m touched you negotiated on my behalf,” I say, getting into the car, and tossing my jacket to the back seat.
River lets go of the dog, cups the side of his mouth to whisper, “Don’t tell her, but you’re more interesting than she is.”
“Blasphemy, and I like it,” I say, setting my backpack and cooler on the floor near the dog. She dips her nose, sniffing, but doesn’t try to open the cooler. Well-trained—that’s Delilah. I stretch to stroke her soft head. “She looks like a little furry person sitting upright.”
River beams. “Be still, my beating heart. Complimenting my dog. You are officially my favorite person.”
And you’re mine.
I keep that thought to myself as I turn around, tug on the seatbelt and click it in.
When I raise my face, River’s fiddling with his Waze app. As he taps in his sister’s address in Petaluma, I steal a few seconds to stare shamelessly. His sun-streaked hair falls onto his face, and I want to push those strands off his forehead and say, Can’t you see better like that? He works the corner of his bottom lip with his teeth as he types, like concentrating on Echo’s location is mission-critical. Then, he lifts his hand and sweeps his hair off his forehead. The angle affords me an up-close view of his inked skin, since he’s pushed up the sleeve of his shirt, showing off the tattoos that cover his left arm. Black bands, sunbursts, a tree, a sparrow, and a rainbow band too. I want to trace them all with my fingertips, then my tongue, then my lips.
My chest twists.
TJ is right.
I’ve got to say something.
It’s going to eat me alive.
I’m surprised it hasn’t yet.
“All set,” River says, then drops his hand to the wheel. For a few seconds, his gaze travels down my body, then back up, slowing at my lips, then my eyes. He blinks, swallows, then flashes a bigger grin. “Oh, by the way, Grant asked if we’d stop at Declan’s mom’s cabin to do a few quick things to get it ready for their visit next weekend. Should take fifteen minutes tops.”
“Sounds good.”
“Excellent. Ready, then?”
Nope. Not one bit. But maybe somewhere on the way to or from Tahoe I’ll find the guts to tell you I want to be more than friends with you. So badly.
“Let’s get this show on the road. I made a playlist,” I say with as much vim and vigor as I can inject into my tone.
“I thought we could listen to a podcast,” he counters as he pulls into Friday afternoon traffic.
I mime retching.
“You don’t like podcasts? Like, in general?”
“That’s like saying you don’t like cake in general? When the answer is I love chocolate cake, but I can’t stand red velvet. In fact, I’d go so far as to call it a cake abomination.”
As he flicks the turn signal, he shakes his head, tsking me. “That’s because you’re a cream cheese hater.”
“Cream cheese is up there with raisins, Monday mornings, and yogurt that expired a day ago.”
“I love cream cheese. Cream cheese with chives, cream cheese with strawberries, garlic cream cheese.” River lets his tongue loll from his mouth for a few seconds.
I cringe, not at his tongue, but at the flavor mention. “Garlic is unacceptable.”
“As what? As a garnish? A flavor? A spice?”
“As anything. It’s unacceptable as literally anything,” I say as he cruises up Fillmore on the way to the bridge.
“So you won’t kiss someone with garlic breath?”
“Not if I can help it.”
River mimes checking off an item on a list. “Note to self: no garlic.”
My heart speeds up. My mind jumps too many steps ahead. To kissing, to fresh breath, to how his lips might taste. So I do the thing I do well. Needle him. “Anyway, the retching was for your podcasts.”
He arches a questioning brow. “My podcasts? What’s wrong with my podcasts? Are they red velvet podcasts to you?”
“Yes, they are. Red velvet and raisins.”
River’s jaw drops. “I’m just learning this now? You equate my podcast taste to . . . raisins? The mutant form of grapes?”
I nod several times. “Because you listen to all those murder shows.”
“You don’t like murder podcasts?” he asks, as if I said I don’t like chocolate or champagne, when I love both.
Clearly.
“I don’t like murder,” I correct as we reach the Golden Gate Bridge.
River cracks up. “No one likes murder, Owen.” He tilts his head, takes a beat, then raises a finger. “Wait. Hold on. Do murderers?” He curls both hands tighter around the wheel as we cruise across the bridge, concentration etched in his brow perhaps from the driving, or perhaps from the questions he’s asking himself. “They must, right? At least, serial killers do. They probably dig murder. They probably relish murder. I mean, the mind of a serial killer is a fascinating place. But even so, do they actually love murder? Can they love anything? Even something evil? Or is it about their own twisted makeup? Hmmm. So much to think about.”