Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 152064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 152064 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 760(@200wpm)___ 608(@250wpm)___ 507(@300wpm)
Tally
I love you girls! Wish me luck!
Cammie
You don’t need luck when you’re a smoke show.
Fee
^^^This, but also ALL THE LUCK.
Enid
*confetti GIF*
I set my phone aside and do some quick makeup surgery to help with the redness. The puffiness is a problem that will have to resolve itself. I change my sweater from something dad dinner-appropriate to something Flip dinner-appropriate. This one has a V-neck that highlights my modest cleavage. Face and wardrobe managed, I return to the living room.
Flip is leafing through one of my textbooks on the dining room table.
“Ready!” My voice shakes with excitement and anxiety.
He closes the textbook, and his eyes lift. “You look beautiful.”
My stomach feels like a blender on full speed. “Thanks. So do you.” I cringe. “I mean hot. Or handsome.”
He grins, and I blush.
I drop my purse on the table. “I’ll just feed Parsnip, and then we can go.”
“Sure.” He looks too delicious for words.
I quickly spoon some stinky wet food into Parsnip’s dish while he meows loudly and weaves between my legs. I barely set the plate down, before he starts chewing noisily.
“You have no manners,” I chastise.
“But he’s cute.”
“Yeah, he is.” I grab Flip’s wrist and nearly pass out from the contact. “We only have a few seconds before Parsnip realizes we’re leaving. Then he’ll engage lightning mode and try to make a run for the hall.”
“Like a jailbreak?” Flip slips his feet into his shoes while I tuck mine into a pair of heeled boots.
“Exactly.” I grab my jacket and put my hand on the knob. “We have to be quick, or we’ll spend the next twenty minutes corralling him.”
“I have pretty good reflexes.” Flip looks highly amused.
“So does ’Snip.” I drop my voice to a whisper. “Ready?”
He gives me a thumbs-up. He has no idea.
I turn the knob, yank the door open, and shove Flip into the hall. Parsnip meows and bolts around the corner, rushing toward us at warp speed. “Shit. He’s coming in hot!” I grab him around the middle and toss him back inside, pulling the door closed. Parsnip wails mournfully on the other side of the door, nails dragging obnoxiously down the steel. He continues to yowl like he’s dying.
“Wow,” Flip says.
“Yeah. He needed a home and a lot of love and I couldn’t leave him in the shelter for the rest of his adorable, demonic life.”
“How long had he been in the shelter?”
Every time I glance at Flip, he smiles at me. “Too long. He can’t really be around other animals. He was one more bite away from being put down, so he became mine.”
We walk down the hall together, my nerves on overdrive now that I’m not trying to keep my wily cat from escaping. My stomach is behaving like I’m on a tilt-a-whirl. This is literally a dream come true. I’m overwhelmed and I have so many questions.
The elevator comes right away, but it’s far from empty. I would suggest waiting for the next one, except it’s dinnertime, so it’ll be busy like this for the next hour. Flip’s fingers press gently against the dip in my spine as we step inside the already mostly full box. This is a student apartment complex, and everyone who lives here attends Tilton.
“Holy shit,” some guy mutters.
“What?” his friend asks.
The guy tips his head in our direction.
His friend’s eyes widen when they land on Flip and shift to me.
Flip pulls me into his side, and dips down until his lips are at my ear. “We probably should have taken the stairs, eh?”
I giggle and force my knees to lock, since they’ve turned to Jell-O.
“Flip Madden.” The guy’s voice is laced with awe.
“Hey.” Flip nods his acknowledgement.
Two girls wear confused looks. Another is suddenly very interested. I turn to Flip, and his grip on my waist tightens. Protectively. Possessively, even. He’s wearing the same look he was when Quinn slung me over his shoulder at the lodge.
Thankfully we reach the lobby, and he ushers me out of the elevator, arm still around me as he guides me to the front entrance.
We make it outside without causing a scene. I zip my jacket, the heat dissipating quickly in the frigid January evening.
“Dinner rush is probably not the best time for someone like you to take the elevators,” I muse. Tilton’s hockey team is like royalty here.
Flip shrugs. “I’m used to it. Do you have a place you’d like to go for dinner?” We walk briskly to the public parking lot.
“Wherever is fine with me. We probably want to put a little distance between us and the campus, though.”
“Good call. It wouldn’t be much fun if we get mobbed.” He opens the passenger door for me.
I duck inside and wait until he’s behind the wheel before I throw out options. “What about the Pancake House, or the Watering Hole?”