Total pages in book: 121
Estimated words: 113130 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 113130 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 566(@200wpm)___ 453(@250wpm)___ 377(@300wpm)
“Come and take a picture with me,” Victoria says to me. “I can caption it single and ready to mingle.”
“We aren’t mingling.” My father puts his hands in his pockets and looks up at the ceiling. “No one is going to mingle. This is a family event.” His voice goes higher and higher. “There is no mingling. Please, don’t start this.” He looks at my sister. “I beg of you.”
“Why do you think Jaxon’s driving his own car tonight?” Victoria asks my father. “So if he finds someone he wants to mingle with, he doesn’t have to come home and we don’t have to hear moaning for two minutes.” She winks at me.
“Okay, for one, two minutes? Please.” I roll my eyes. “And that is not why I’m taking my own car.” I shake my head. “I’m taking my own car because if I want to leave, I can leave and not have to wait for you guys. Or, if I’m having too much fun, I don’t have to leave when you guys are leaving.”
Victoria holds her hand up, snapping her fingers in the air, moving her hips side to side. “That means he’s ready to mingle.”
“Don’t ever move like that again,” I grit through my teeth. “Now, are you going with me or Mom and Dad?”
“I’ll go with you, so Mom and Dad can make out in the car and get it over with so I don’t have to see it when we get there.”
My father wraps his arm around Evelyn’s waist. “I’m never going to get over making out with her.” He bends his head and kisses her lips and she sighs, as if it’s the first kiss he’s given her and not that they’ve been together for over twenty years.
“Is Kiera coming?” I look up the steps toward my youngest sister’s bedroom.
“She’s gone skiing for the weekend,” Victoria announces. “Besides, she’s sixteen and the last thing she wants to do is hang out with the old people.”
“We are not old,” my father snorts. “We are—” He tries to think of a word but Victoria cuts him off.
“Old,” Victoria repeats. “See you there.”
She walks out of the door and snatches my hand, pulling me with her. “See you there,” I say quickly before I’m pulled out into the cool air. Taking the keys out of my pocket and unlocking the door, I open the door for her. “Get in, Tori.” I use the nickname that she got when Kiera couldn’t say her whole name and she just became Tori.
“I don’t know why you are still single.”
“Because I want to be,” I answer her honestly. “Besides, I haven’t found the right person yet.” She gets in and looks up at me.
“How do you think you’re going to find the right person when you keep dating the same old girl?” she asks me, reaching out her hand for the door handle but I close it before she touches it.
I walk around to the driver’s side as I spot my parents walking out of the house. Hand in hand, my father rubbing his thumb over his bottom lip, no doubt having just had a make-out session with Evelyn. I guess they are the reason I haven’t found my person. I don’t just want a person to date. I want a person I can grow old with. A person who walks into the room and all I can do is think about kissing her. A person who will stand by my side through the good and the bad, not just when it’s convenient for them. Like my last girlfriend, who didn’t understand why I couldn’t go out on the town while I was recovering from an injury that took me out of the game for three weeks. The sound of the horn honking has me opening my driver’s side door.
“It’s freezing,” my sister hisses.
“You might be warmer if your dress covered your back,” I tell her and she snorts.
“If that isn’t you deflecting, I don’t know what is.”
“What am I deflecting?” I ask her as I start the car and she messes with the heat in the car, rubbing her hands together.
“That you keep going for the same girl over and over again.” I pull out of the driveway.
“I do not.” I focus on the road.
“You so do.” She laughs. “It’s those artificial girls who are all ‘my boyfriend plays for the NHL.’” She makes a fake voice. “You have not had a girlfriend for longer than six months. And the reason for that is because you know it’s safe since you don’t actually want anything serious with them. It’s called sowing your oats, Mom says.”
“I was with Tiffany for almost a year,” I remind her of the girlfriend I just broke up with.
“And you broke up with her because?” She taps her finger on the door handle. “Shall we discuss all the reasons that you broke up with her?” She tilts her head to the side, waiting for me to answer.