Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 125213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125213 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Was there a word for slightly hungover, wholly fulfilled by how much fun I had last night, confused about my feelings for my best friend I’m now about to pretend to get engaged to, and completely frustrated over his deflection of my questions last night and his seeming frustration that I’d asked at all?
There’s a challenge for you, Webster.
I couldn’t keep up with my thoughts last night, but they’d run rampant like little hellions, and kept me awake long after Aleks dropped me off. I thought about the night with Aleks, how much fun I’d had, how good it had felt to let loose. But then I’d think about the pier, about how not once, but twice, I’d thought maybe, just maybe, he was going to kiss me.
He seemed close enough to do it.
He seemed like he wanted to do it.
But that just showed I was still a naïve girl who knew nothing at all, because he hadn’t. And why would he? There was no one around to perform for.
If the last time I’d asked him to kiss me wasn’t proof that he didn’t want to, I didn’t know what was.
But… he was so damn confusing. He was flirting with me on that pier, wasn’t he? The ice cream, the way he held me when I almost fell…
Was it really just a joke to him?
Did he honestly feel nothing?
And then he shut me out when I asked about wanting a family. That was what infuriated me most. I knew he let me in more than he did anyone else, but he still kept me at a distance in times like that, as if he didn’t trust me with the real answers.
I blamed that tornado of thoughts and my lack of sleep for how touchy I was now.
But inside, I knew it was also because Aleks was about to fake propose to me.
And I had no fucking idea how I felt about that.
Aleks slid up behind me once I was positioned at the bow, his arms wrapping me up tightly as he widened his stance and bent low enough to rest his chin on my shoulder.
I knew it was all for show, but it didn’t stop my heart from thundering in my chest at the way it felt to be held by him, didn’t stop my next swallow from being so damn difficult to take that I gave up completely.
“Do you still want to go through with this?” he asked softly in my ear.
My nostrils flared, two truths battling for dominance inside me. On the one hand, I absolutely did not want to do this. I didn’t want to subject myself to more pretending with Aleks when I had so many not-so-fake feelings for him tearing me up. Just hearing him say last night that what he wanted didn’t matter, that love and marriage and having a family wasn’t in the cards for him… God, it made me want to prove him wrong.
It made me want to hold him, and kiss him, and tell him I…
What?
Love him?
My stomach soured with the thought of saying that out loud, though my heart kicked in my chest with the fact that it was true.
I did love him.
I always had.
But on the other hand, I understood what he didn’t say. It wasn’t just that he didn’t think it was in the cards for him — it was that he didn’t really want it. He didn’t want to say it to me, didn’t want to admit that he liked his lifestyle of the rich and famous, but he did.
He wanted to score goals, make money, and fuck whoever he wanted.
That was the truth he was hiding.
And in a way, I understood — because I wanted success, too.
I wanted this for me, for my career. I wanted the picture Isabella had painted. I loved the achievements of the album so far, the projection that my tour was going to sell out stadiums, the fact that every time Garrett Orange or one of his cronies ran their mouths about me, we were quick to bury his ass with a more enticing story of our own.
We’d taken control of a narrative I thought I had no say in.
Garrett had been robbed of attention the same way he’d tried to rob me of my success, and I thrived on that power.
In the end, that part of me won out. Because I didn’t know another way to handle Garrett the Ferret, but I knew I could snuff out my feelings for Aleks. I’d done it for years. I was practically a professional in the art of denying myself when it came to him.
Ever since the night he made it clear what I was to him — and what I would never be.
“Yes,” I answered, tilting my chin just enough so Aleks could see I wasn’t bluffing. “I want this. I just don’t want you to embarrass yourself trying to get this video. It’s not something we need. The photos will be enough.”