Total pages in book: 188
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 179812 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 899(@200wpm)___ 719(@250wpm)___ 599(@300wpm)
I move to the desk that sits by the window and pick up a bunch of unopened letters. They confirm what I’d already suspected. I mean, you don’t fucking work at a strip club because that’s your life’s ambition. Not to mention, she fucking hates it. I could see it in her body language. She does it out of necessity. She does it because she has no choice.
And again, according to Joe, she works multiple jobs and takes care of her sister singlehandedly. Pair that with the location of her apartment and now these letters—most of which are overdue bills—and I know she hasn’t had a lot of help in her life. I already know her father fucked off when she was five and fuck knows, where her mother is. She needs a break. She needs someone to take care of her.
And it’s going to be me.
Because a: I know how it feels. I know how it fucking feels to struggle like this, worrying over money and bills while also taking care of your siblings. Because no one else would. I know how it feels to live with that uncertainty. While I had a great fucking coping mechanism and my siblings around me to support me if needed, she has no one. She is alone and it pisses me the fuck off. It makes me fucking angry that she’s doing all of this alone. She’s fucking struggling and despite knowing her for a year, watching her for year even when I didn’t want to, I had no clue about it. I never fucking knew that the strawberry-haired girl with a shy smile who has a secret crush on me is hiding things. For some reason, I thought she couldn’t hide anything from me. And now that I know, I’m going to take care of it. I’m going to take care of her. I’m going to solve all her problems.
Me and no one else. I wouldn’t let them. Again, not going to analyze this. It is what it is.
And b: Because I have a problem of my own, isn’t it? And she’s going to help me solve it. We can think of it as a job she’ll be working for me in exchange for compensation. Because as much as I want to help her, I also want to set clear boundaries about what this is.
She asked me what I was doing in Bardstown tonight and the answer is I came for her. No, I didn’t know I was going to find her on a fucking date with another guy when I stopped at a red light. But the moment I promised my brother that I’d get my head on straight, I knew how.
For the past six months, I’ve been trying to move on from my twin brother’s girlfriend. I’ve been trying to fight this anger inside of me. I’ve been searching for a distraction when it’s been here all along.
She’s been my biggest distraction since the moment I saw her a year ago. Her strawberry hair, those freckles on her face. Her shy smiles, her side glances. Everything about her distracts me to no end, and while I’ve hated the way I can’t stop thinking about her, I’m going to embrace it now. I’m going to binge on my Little Strawberry and use her to forget the shitshow my life has become. I’m going to use her to get my game back, to prove everyone wrong, the media, the team, my own fucking brothers who think something is wrong with me and bring the championship trophy home.
Because for some unknown reason, I know she’s the only one who can cure me.
Chapter Seven
“He’s here again,” Lively’s sing-songy voice cuts through my thoughts.
She’s standing at the threshold of the locker room, and I look up from my seat on the bench. My shift is about to start and I just got off the phone with my sister—yes, she’ll be in bed by the time I want her to and she’s taken all her meds and no, she still won’t look at the brochures. But at Lively’s declaration, my heart starts pounding. Because I know who she’s talking about. Still, I pretend I don’t know as I get up and stow my cell phone in my locker. “Who’s he?”
Lively gives me a look. “Like you don’t know.”
I snap the door shut and walk toward her. “I don’t.”
“You so do,” she says, wiggling her eyebrows. “One of these days you’re going to have to tell me what you did.”
I walk past her and leave the room. “You know what I did.”
As in, she partially knows what I did. I told her I spilled my drinks on him, and he got really mad. But I apologized and all was well. No mention of the back room and what happened there. Or that he crashed my date last night and then I ran away from him.