Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
I clicked into her Instagram and saw jaw-dropping photos of vistas, hikes, early wildflowers, and her smiling face. She was beautiful, but not in a cover-model way. More in a girl-next-door way. Something about her felt safe and easy, and I looked forward to getting to know her.
And maybe putting DrunkenPoet out of my mind once and for all.
5
ALEX
IndexEcho: How’s the head this morning, sunshine?
DrunkenPoet: Broken. How did you know I was drinking?
IndexEcho: Late-night haiku about waffles. Hard agree about syrup geometry, BTW.
_____________________
“Don’t do it,” my sister warned, pointing her cocktail straw at me across the bar.
I emptied the rest of my cosmo and held up my glass to toast. “Shall I compare thee to a winter’s night? Thou art more frosty and more full of spite. Rough codes do shake the darling buds of May, and firemen’s breath doth blow special effects permits away.”
My voice was soft and slurry, which perfectly matched the warm numbness moving sluggishly through my veins.
“You did it,” Ella said in disgust. “Don’t we have a rule about this, Alex? You quote poetry, you owe me a shot.”
“Uh, no. That rule only applies if I quote lyrics from transformative modern poet Taylor Swift,” I said smugly. “I don’t make the rules. Mattie does.” After a pause, I added, “All you are is mean.”
“Goddammit,” Ella muttered. “He’s throwing it back to the Speak Now era. I’m calling Mattie.”
Tavo took another sip of his Shirley Temple and giggled as if he’d had any alcohol at all. “I think it’s cute. Alex’s poetry thing.”
Ella shook her head while she held her phone out in her palm, the ringing loud on speaker mode. “Not cute. Pathetic. When Anders Creighton broke up with Alex sophomore year in college, he was on a Fireball shots and e.e. cummings kick. It was not pretty.”
Ohhh, e.e. cummings. Love me some e.e.…
I sucked in a breath and gave it a shot. “chief kincaid… (if that is your… real name)…your eyes are… two blue… extinguishers… that put out… my spark…”
Ella clapped a hand over my mouth. “No. Be done.”
I blew out a breath and slumped. “Anders wouldn’t have written me up for a faulty—”
My sister Mattie’s voice came over the speaker so loudly I jumped and knocked over my new napkin holder.
“What the fuck, sister-from-hell, I’m asleep.”
“You made me knock over the new napkins!” I shouted.
“Oh Jesus,” Mattie groaned. “Is he drunk? Is that why you’re—fuck, is he spouting poetry?”
“Swiftian poetry,” Ella agreed grimly. “Among others.”
Tavo giggled louder. “Oh my gosh, this is amazing.”
“Don’t worry,” Ella added, reaching for the napkins that had spilled across the bar. “Timber’s closed. We were having a few drinks to celebrate the Fourth, and your brother got carried away.”
“He’s your brother when he’s like this,” Mattie muttered.
I heard a man’s voice in the background and leaned in to say hi to my future brother-in-law. Before I could say anything, Mattie continued. “Why’re you drunk, Alexander the Grape? Is this about your sex life? Ella and I think your dry spell has gone on way too long. You need some stress relief.”
I blinked at the phone. “You and Ella were talking about my sex life? Ew.”
“No shit, ew,” Ella said. “But we’re right. When was the last time you got laid?”
Never. Thankfully, I wasn’t drunk enough to say that out loud.
“’S been a while,” I said instead. “Looooong while,” I added with a giggle and hiccup. That much was true.
Tavo leaned forward on his stool, flashing a big smile. “I heard there’s a new class up at the rescue academy. They’re, like, medics and helicopter pilots and wilderness emergency people.” He fanned himself with long, slender fingers. “They say the instructors are even hotter than the students.”
“Ew, no,” Ella said. “Our cousin Tommy is one of those instructors this summer.”
I shook my head. “And no adrenaline junkies, thank you very much.”
Been there, done that. I’d fallen for a guy who was stationed somewhere in the Middle East. Worrying about him had been bad enough, but when he’d suddenly gone silent, fear had eaten away at me piece by piece.
Had he ghosted or died? There was no way to know.
I hadn’t even learned his name, which meant his disappearance would forever remain a mystery.
“Whose name, Alex?” Tavo asked.
I shook my head at him. “Huh?”
“You said you didn’t even have his name. Whose name?”
Fuck. I was drunker than I’d thought if I’d said that out loud.
My sisters both made a sound of understanding, and Ella jumped up. “Time for bed. You’re cut off, and we’re going upstairs right now.”
Tavo offered to finish turning off all the lights while Ella dragged my drunk ass upstairs. When she stood behind me in the bathroom doorway, making sure I was brushing my teeth like I’d promised, she asked, “Do you think that’s why you’re giving this fire chief such a hard time? Because of your online guy?”