Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 128156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
My eyes close, and I shake my head, my jaw locked tight.
Twelve thousand dollars down the pipe in a few hours’ time.
Guilt crashes down on me, relentless and unforgiving, trapping my lungs and making me gasp.
I undo the top button of my shirt, pulling in a long, deep breath, only for a shaky, broken exhale to leave my lips a moment later.
My father doesn’t even make that in a month. He was supposed to retire this summer, and now he’ll have to work his ass into the ground just to survive after what my mother did to him.
Is that what happens when you are in love? You give your all to someone and eventually they stop giving back, instead taking and twisting a knife right into your gut?
Fuck.
I drop my head back, eyes catching on the sparkling light fixtures above, because of course the jet bathroom has fancy shit like that. My attention moves to the soap dispenser and napkin dispenser—also made of some sort of crystal or glass.
This is what Paige’s future could be: private jets and live shows. She deserves it.
She deserves to live out those plans she made with her dad to travel the States and visit all the theater venues. To live free and happy and without worry, with someone who has a name like Prescott, because if that isn’t the most uppity, rich-boy name I’ve ever heard, I don’t know what it is.
What the hell could I offer anyone? My bad karma? Some college credits that won’t mean shit without the degree to go with them?
A failed football dream?
A truck with over two hundred thousand miles on it?
I’ve got exactly $322 to my name, and that has to last me months.
Nothing. I’ve got fucking nothing.
But maybe that’s for the best, because love ruins lives and marriage is a death sentence.
A hard knock sounds on the door, and my eyes open.
“You good, man?” Mason’s voice reaches me. “We’re getting ready to land.”
“Yeah,” I answer, but it comes out low. Pathetically broken. “Yeah,” I try again, looking at myself in the mirror.
As quickly as I meet my own gaze, I have to look away.
Pushing out of the door, I try to slip past, but Mase blocks my path.
Worry stares back at me, his hand coming up to clamp my shoulder. “I’m here for you, brother. You know that, right?”
I nod, my throat thick, and slip past. My eyes connect with Noah’s, and he gives a small smile.
Noah, the man of all men.
The pro football player.
Ari’s fiancé.
Paige’s closest friend.
My best friend’s soon-to-be-real brother.
Bro, fucking stop!
Self-loathing eats up my chest, its teeth digging in and spitting me out.
Throwing myself into my seat, I close my eyes, and that is exactly how I stay until it’s time to get out.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Chase
The second my pen lifts from the page, my notebook is swiped from under me, my head yanking toward Paige as she grins my way, quickly flipping through the pages.
I tense, watching as she scans over my handwriting, a small scowl building along her features as she does.
“I don’t know whether to be embarrassed or impressed,” she teases. “Or maybe I’m a little of both because your notes are almost the lecture verbatim.”
I force myself to chuckle, hoping it doesn’t sound as anxious as it feels, and track the item as she slides the notebook back onto my desktop. If she were to look closer, she would see it is nearly the entire passage from today’s section. I copied as much as I could in the library this morning.
“Is this your way of kissing his butt since nothing ever happened with the whole phone-during-testing thing, being overprepared just in case he comes to look? I still feel like that was my fault, by the way.”
“It wasn’t and one of us has to act like we’re paying attention to avoid his.”
She tips her head, her long hair falling over her shoulder and piling on her desk. “Are you calling me out right now?”
“I mean, you’ve been staring at me for the last five minutes.”
Her lips purse adorably, that cute little blush I might be getting addicted to creeping up her chest as she takes in the slow curve of my mouth.
I can’t help but lean in a little, keeping my tone low. “Not going to deny it, Shortcake?”
“Shush.” She faces forward to avoid giving away her full smile, and I’m a little surprised at how much I want to see it, at how nice this feels.
It’s been a few weeks since the theater, and while my mind was heavy in the few days that followed, we’ve somehow fallen into this easy rhythm where we’re a bit more playful than before. A small shift that she initiated, and though I’ve tried, I find myself powerless to evade, likely from the fact that I don’t want to. I quite like this other side of her, and I like to think I’m the only one who sees it.