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)
“TJ?”
“Yes?”
“This is all I’ve ever wanted.” We stop at the corner near Waterloo Bridge, waiting at the traffic light. “When I was six, I fell off the swing at a local park. Knocked out my two front teeth,” he says, flashing a smile like he’s showing me the missing teeth. His are perfectly straight.
“That doesn’t sound like fun,” I say.
“It took a while for my adult teeth to come in. But at that point, it was hard for me to say S properly. I had to see a speech therapist to learn to pronounce it properly,” he tells me. “Her name was Alice, and she had three orange cats who roamed all over her house on the outskirts of London. She had me do monologues and recite poetry to work on my speech. And it was like . . . magic. I knew then that I wanted to perform.”
Chills rush down my arms. His passion is infectious. “It’s kind of amazing when something clicks, right?”
“It unlocked me,” he says, and we cross the street. “And I felt alive and excited. I could see my future. I could feel it so deeply. I wanted this job so badly. Sometimes when I’m out with my friends, I don’t always let on how much I crave the work. I try to act cool and casual. I even did that with my own brother the other day when we were having tea. But I’m not cool and casual about it. Not one bit. I just can’t be.”
“I understand completely,” I say, and when we reach the entrance to The Vaults, I stop. “Jude?”
“Yes?”
Here goes. This feels like stripping naked, like showing him the most vulnerable parts of me. My hopes and dreams. But it also feels right to tell Jude before my brother, before work friends, before my friends back home. “I’m writing a novel.”
His smile is like the sun rising in the morning. It’s slow and unstoppable, and when it coasts across his gorgeous face, it lights up the entire sky. “Is that so?”
“What you just said, that unlocking—that’s how I felt when I came to London when I was thirteen. When I went to the bookshop, that was my light bulb. When I knew what I wanted to do, that’s why I visited all these places in London. For my novel,” I say, and wow, that was hard.
But so necessary.
For a few seconds, Jude’s lips twitch like he’s trying to rein in an emotion that borders on laughter. But it’s not a chuckle he’s holding in. It’s more like a look of utter delight.
Like he’s even happier than he was when he got the part. “Let’s visit all the places.”
I revise my estimate to completely, utterly, absolutely infatuated.
18
THIS WILL SOLVE EVERYTHING!
TJ’s Travel Journal
London, Day Fifteen
Dear Digital Travel Journal,
It’s official. It only took two weeks for me to fall in love with London, from the sights to the rain to the music.
Don’t get me started on the men, though. That situation is not what I expected. There has been no non-stop fiesta of dick.
Cue the sad wiener trombone.
But hey, I blame my roommate for that.
Jude takes up all the space in my mind. He makes everyone else look like a carbon copy of an already faded, old-timey, black and white photograph.
After the last week of getting to know him, I’m no longer convinced I can handle fifty more weeks of living together with, let’s face it, my dream guy. He’s the swooniest man I’ve ever known, and my entire body vibrates just being near him. He’s wickedly charming and ridiculously beautiful, and I am so far gone.
So, yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ll melt into a puddle of unresolved sexual tension in a few more days.
And really, what use am I to the world in liquid lust form?
When I went for a run this morning along the river in the rain, I worked through the roomie quandary. I asked myself what I’d do if I were writing the story of a guy falling for his roommate who was stuck with a lease he couldn’t break.
Two miles in, skin wet, shirt soaked, I formulated a badass plan to move Jude back to square one in the friend zone.
Let’s call it Operation Wingman. All I have to do is enlist him as my comrade in arms.
19
THE ROOMIE PACT
Jude
My sex life is a whodunit, and I’ve added up the clues. A night of banging will solve the crime of too much horniness in 5E. Then we can focus on our careers and being the best roommates ever.
Now all I need is to find the right moment to present my solution to TJ.
My mission on Sunday afternoon, as we wander through Samuel Johnson’s home? Keep the mood light to prime for the pump.
“Perhaps your hero needs to rescue a damsel in distress from a book thief,” I suggest as we survey the research library.