Total pages in book: 149
Estimated words: 142866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142866 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Their expressions fall.
“Dassit?” Yasmen demands. “That’s your juicy tidbit you need our perspective on?”
“Gotta say.” Soledad tsks and lifts her bottled water for a sip. “I was expecting more.”
“That’s not what I need your perspective on,” I say. I’m not sure how to put it. There is no hard evidence supporting the misgiving that’s been building in my belly every time I think about my interactions with Maverick Bell. “He and I…”
“He and you?” Yasmen straightens in the chair from her disappointed slump. “Y’all what?”
“Not like that.” I sigh. “Before I knew who he was, we had a moment at the bar. Like… not flirting, but vibing.”
“Vibing?” Soledad looks rapt again. “Go on.”
“To be clear, he was not flirting with me,” I say. “We just kind of connected? And he said he had seen me on the dance floor.”
“On the dance floor?” Yasmen chuckles. “You turned that party out, didn’t you? Did you harass the DJ into playing ‘Feels Good’?”
“Of course not,” I scoff, rolling my eyes. “It was ‘Candy’ by Cameo.”
“That was gonna be my second guess,” Soledad offers smugly. “Cameo always brings them to the floor.”
“I may have led a few… okay, half… the people at the party in the electric slide.”
“Oh, Lord.” Yasmen shakes her head, reaching for her Diet Coke. “Please tell me you did not mesmerize that man with your hips.”
“I do have a rather hypnotic ass,” I say with a cackle. “But I digress. He mentioned that he saw me cutting up on the dance floor. And then we started talking about what I do for a living, and I mentioned the Aspire Fund. He said he might want to invest. And then I noticed a line of people hovering, wanting to see him, and found out he was the host. He was Maverick Bell. I didn’t recognize him at first.”
“Wow.” Yasmen rests her chin in her hand and watches me closely. Too closely. “How was he?”
“He was just a guy.” I shrug, forcing nonchalance.
Best not to mention how my cells seemed to pulse when he focused all his attention on me. Or how the energy around him magnetized the room. It feels like my skin is thinning. Like I’ve been hiding something, maybe even from myself, and I’m turning translucent under my friends’ scrutiny.
“By the time I realized who he was, Chapel and Zere came over. Then Aunt Geneva called all upset.”
“Was it your mom?” Yasmen’s brows snap together. “What happened?”
“Mama was anxious, so I got her to calm down, but the three of them overheard.” I pause and then finish. “He overheard and shared that his grandfather passed away of Alzheimer’s a few years ago. Then when we were down by the dock—”
“What was y’all doing down by the dock?” Soledad asks, a piece of rice flying from her mouth with the rush to get the words out. “Girl.”
“It wasn’t like that.” I rub the back of my neck, which feels inexplicably hot. “It really wasn’t, but he said if I ever needed to talk, he’s available. It’s such a unique experience, what I’m navigating with Mama, and he understood.”
“And that was it?” Yasmen turns her lips down. “That’s nothing to—”
“And then he called me,” I add.
The muted conversation of other diners is the only sound around us for a few seconds.
“Called you to say what?” Soledad asks, her chopsticks clutching sushi and hovering at her mouth.
“He said he wanted to know more about the Aspire Fund.” I look between the two of them as if for confirmation. “Which is totally normal, right? We’d been talking about it.”
“Yeah.” Yasmen stretches the word out like an accordion. “Hen, what aren’t you telling us?”
“Oh, I think I know what she’s leaving out,” Soledad says, studying her phone with brows lifted. “This.”
She turns the phone around and dammit. The Instagram photo of Maverick Bell says the quiet part out loud.
“Dayummmm,” Yasmen mutters, taking the phone from Soledad.
Maverick is on the beach, holding a surfboard stuck in the sand. Against the backdrop of the gloriously azure Pacific Ocean, he’s a brushstroke of golden-brown skin, still dripping wet from his swim. There’s the beginning of a smile on his face, but not quite fully formed. The confidence that radiated off him in waves when he was dressed is just as evident with him half naked. Maybe even more. His wetsuit is rolled down to his waist, exposing that devil-made V slashing at his hips. There was a hint of muscle in the loose-fitting shirt he wore at the party, but this photo tells the whole carved, unmitigated truth of this man’s chest and arms and shoulders. Even his neck looks…
“Okay,” I mumble. “I was just getting to the part about him being really fine and lickable.”
Two sets of eyes bounce from me to the photo of Maverick and back again.