Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
I can’t stop staring through the window, wondering if I might see him pop out through the back door after the sun has set and it gets especially scenic. Again, not that I would see much from this far away, and especially when it’s dark, but for whatever borderline-weirdo reason, I’m watching.
Maybe it was that last thing he said about my eyes. He didn’t remark about my body. Or wanting to fuck me.
Despite my sensing immediately that he played for my team, and my humiliating shirt-falling-off-my-body fiasco clearly turned him on more than it freaked him out.
But instead of coming on to me, he just called my eyes beautiful and made me feel for the first time since Theo like someone bothered to value me for more than just the meat on my bones.
And maybe that was too much. Why I ran. Guess I just can’t trust compliments like that anymore.
But why should I trust his compliments? Especially coming from some hotshot celeb who thinks he can throw money at me to make up for how he treated my bungalow.
Besides that, he’s an actor. He pretends for a living. He lies for a living. I could’ve just been an acting exercise of his. Seducing me. Leading me on. Seeing how much he can get out of the clueless island guy paid to check on him.
Then at the end of his stay, flinging money at me and calling it a tip, making me feel like cheap room service.
Yeah. It’s official. I’m done with that guy.
“How’d it go?”
I turn to find Brooke coming into the kitchen, yanking open the pantry for a snack. “Good evening,” I greet her as I screw the lid back on my protein tub.
“That’s not an answer,” she sings before settling on a granola bar, then bumping the pantry door shut with her butt before coming up to the counter. “So who is it? Our mystery renter? Was I right?”
“Nope,” I mumble between sips of my shake.
“‘Nope’? Just ‘nope’?”
“It ain’t DiCaprio.”
“But who is it? You saw him, didn’t you? Don’t tell me you chickened out.”
“I never chicken out of anything.” I lean back against the counter, catching sight of the old bungalow through the window again. “I met him.”
“So who was he?”
“Don’t know. Don’t care.”
“What? What do you mean you—” She lets out a groan and squirms all over the place, the plastic wrapper of her granola bar crinkling loudly. Her exasperation is always so over-the-top. “I’ve waited all afternoon, Finn! Even waited for you to return from your workout, which you insisted on doing before talking to me, and I let you go because I’m so nice. Then you didn’t text me when you left. I have been dying here.” She comes right up to my side. “He was an actor, though, right? A big-name actor?”
“I don’t do Hollywood stuff. Couldn’t even name two Brad Pitt movies if you put a gun to my head. Except that casino one.”
She presses the end of her granola bar to my head. “No one survives Tyler Durden’s madness to be remembered for only Ocean’s Eleven—and Pitt was in three Oceans.” She lowers the bar. “Was he hot? Tell me that at least. On a scale of garden gnome to Hemsworth …”
“Hemsworth,” I answer bitterly, eyes on the bungalow.
“Chris, Liam, or Luke? Ugh, never mind, you wouldn’t know the difference anyway. What was your impression of him? Was he down-to-earth Hollywood, high-maintenance Hollywood, tree-hugging Hollywood …?”
“All of them, probably,” I mutter.
The way he bore down upon me. His so-called “actor’s intensity”. Saying he had no real friends. Expressing being lonely. How he took command without a trace of authority in his voice.
And how I went from some psycho stalker fan to his greatest gift in half a second. Gazing deeply into my eyes like he just found some fabled pirate’s treasure.
Maybe that’s just part of his game, and I shouldn’t be so quick to assume he plays for my team. He could be one of those actors with the unsettling talent of diving into anyone’s head. Straight actors play gay roles. Just because he fell into my eyes like Alice into Wonderland doesn’t mean he’s ready to invite me to his tea party.
In a place like Dreamwood Isle, you can’t be sure of anything. The amount of straight married men who escape here for a secret weekend away is staggering. Just another unexpected business trip where they take off more than their suit and tie—they take off their hetero identity, their wife and kids, their ring, and be who they truly are. I see it every weekend.
I wonder if that’s why River is here: to escape what the world has decided he is.
I’ve been tempted all afternoon to look him up.
I wonder what keeps stopping me.
Maybe the same thing that’s bothered me since leaving the bungalow—the same thing that chased me with every stride on the treadmill, with every lift and clang of weights, pulling my mind right back to him again and again.