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)
Your secret billionaire grandfather is offering you an entirely new life. How much more could you possibly want, Paige?
“I’m sorry. If that sounded patronizing, that wasn’t—”
I whip around, reaching up to grip his bicep. “No, no. It didn’t. Thank you for what you said, and it’s true. Well, the last part.” I laugh lightly, walking inside the café as he holds the door open. “Hence, why I’ve been late so much.”
“So it’s the grandfather keeping you busy, then? Not the repairs at your studio or a guy or somethin’?”
I peek over at him, and that little frown of his is back as he stares at the menu. Was that anxiousness in his tone?
I shake off the thought, trying to decide how to respond. I’m too embarrassed to tell him the “studio repairs” are nonexistent because I spent the rest of my dad’s life insurance money on the building, leaving nothing left to insure the actual building after paying my tuition fees for this year.
“It’s most definitely a man.” My eyes lock onto hazel ones. “A seventy-five-year-old man who is built like a boxer, who doesn’t look a day over fifty-five, who I’m expected to call Grandpa.”
Chase laughs loudly and I can’t help but smile. “Needy. Got it, makes sense now.”
We’re next in line so I glance up at him again. “Will you let me get you a coffee or something?” I haven’t even finished my sentence before he tries shuffling from the line, intent on declining. “It will make me feel better about you having to fight off the scary girl with dark hair at the end of our row. I know she wants that middle seat we’ve claimed.”
Chase’s lips hook up to one side. “Does she now?”
“Oh yeah.”
“What makes you say that?”
I narrow my eyes playfully. “Did you really not notice she wore an Avix football shirt the last two classes?”
There’s a slight flare in his gaze, one that I think tells me he knows what I’m teasing at, and he might just like that I even caught on to a girl spotting him at all.
He plays along: “Maybe she has a boyfriend on the team?”
This is his way of saying he wouldn’t have noticed if I hadn’t drawn attention to her, right?
I bite back a smile. “Or maybe wearing the football hoodie has nothing to do with you and she wants that middle seat because she has OCD and sitting two to the right makes her eye twitch.”
He leans down. “Maybe she was born with that twitch.”
I gasp and Chase laughs, his hand landing on the small of my back.
“I’m playing. I still have no idea who you’re talking about.”
“Lies!”
“Like you, I’ve been a little too distracted to notice things.”
“Okay, that’s fair.” I step up to the counter, but then his words register, and my attention yanks his way. “Wait, what have I missed?”
“What can I get for you?” the barista asks, and I have no choice but to order.
“Can I get a small, iced chai latte with whipped cream and…” I look to Chase expectantly. “Please?”
He clears his throat. “A small chocolate protein shake.”
He tries to pull his wallet out anyway, but I use the tap feature on my watch to pay before he can and move toward the pickup counter.
“Thanks, Paige. You didn’t have to do that.”
“It’s just a drink. No big deal, I promise.”
“Right.” He nods, tension creeping back into his expression. “I’m going to use the restroom really fast.”
I nod, watching him go, and then turn back to watch the baristas at work.
It’s so crazy to think that this is finally my last year here. It feels like I’ve been here forever, and I mean, I guess I kind of have. Longer than high school, technically. Even if I did miss an entire year after my dad passed.
While I love it here, it will be nice to put this place behind me. To start the next phase of life and bring all the dreams my dad supported to life.
The claws of regret wrap around my lungs the moment I think that, and my heart starts to hurt for so many reasons. But the one I focus on is the dream that was on its way to becoming a reality, only for fate to step in and deal me the joker card yet again.
A storm, the kind we don’t see in Oceanside, the one that’s almost a myth to coastal California. It wasn’t a hurricane, nothing that big, but a freak weather system that rolled in unexpectedly, dumping more rain in one night than we’d see in a year there. The kind of storm that no one could predict, but when it hit, it flooded everything in its path. The water came first, and the damage was brutal.
What should have been an unfortunate inconvenience, though, turned into a complete disaster, and now the studio that was supposed to be my safe haven, the future home of Paige’s Playground, the youth dance and recreation center I’d wanted to open since as long as I can remember, is unrecognizable. If Mother Nature could have waited until graduation, then I would have been able to afford to add the “just in case” insurance for my building.