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)
“I need to know if that man has you dickmatized, because as much as I appreciate the brute and what he does for our team — I don’t exactly see him as your type.”
“Liv,” Maven chastised again.
But I loved that Livia was unapologetic in her questioning — even if the sentiment in her tone stung a bit.
Was she saying that it was weird that I was with NHL’s bad boy, or that I didn’t seem like the type he usually went for?
It was phrased like the first, but felt like the latter the longer she stared at me. It wasn’t necessarily that she was sizing me up, but rather like she was a detective looking for cracks in my story.
And there were many, many cracks — so I knew I needed to tread carefully.
Swallowing down the fact that I was well aware I wasn’t Aleks’s type — no matter how well he pretended otherwise — I forced what I hoped was a dopey, lovesick smile, my eyes falling to my champagne.
“It doesn’t make sense, that I will admit,” I said wistfully. “But… I don’t know. It just sort of happened. We were best friends when he lived with my family in high school. He opened up to me about things he didn’t tell anyone else, and I guess that made me feel safe to do the same.”
My throat tightened with the truth of that statement, with how much I cared for that stupid boy.
The words he’d said in that fake proposal echoed in my ears.
“I could never stop loving you — no matter how hard I tried over the years.”
How many nights had those words kept me awake over these last two months? How many days did I spend plucking through every fiber of them in search of something I knew didn’t exist?
I wanted that statement to be real. I wanted all of it to be real.
What a stupid girl I was.
“We kept in touch over the years, but there was always someone or something between us. I dated other people, he had his career to focus on, we lived in different states.” It was insane how easily I could tell this lie now, how effortlessly I played into the exact scenario that was killing me from the inside. “But after we reconnected earlier this year, we just… decided we didn’t want to play the excuses game anymore. We wanted to try. We wanted to make it work.”
My heart twisted violently, stomach roiling.
How desperately I wanted that to be true.
“And now, here we are,” I said, smiling at the girls as I lifted my glass to take a sip. I didn’t realize I had tears in my eyes until one sneaky bastard leaked and ran down my left cheek. I batted it away, and then laughed a little when I realized I’d made Chloe cry a bit, too.
“That’s so romantic, I want to die a little,” she said, sniffing.
Livia tapped her nails on the table before pointing at me. “Well, all I have to say is that I think you’re a good look for him. I think you bring out the better in him.”
“I co-sign that,” Maven added immediately. “And I am also in the camp that it’s less about him having you dickmatized — although, I think we all had fun when those beach pics of him streaking came out — and more about the fact that he is as soft as a baby kitten when it comes to you.”
“The things he said in that proposal?” Grace squeaked.
“The way he nearly ended a man’s life when he was playing the role of hot security guard after you recorded at the Daisy Kent show?” Chloe chimed in.
They fanned themselves and talked over one another about which was hotter, all while my knee bounced under the table. I needed a change of subject before I crawled out of my fucking skin.
Because everything in me wanted to tell them it was all a sham.
And for reasons I couldn’t quite speak out loud, I wanted to tell them how I really felt. I wanted to tell them how my heart was breaking every second of this charade. I wanted to tell them how I’d gotten myself into this mess, and now I couldn’t wait to get out of it.
I wanted to ask them how the fuck I was supposed to pick up all the pieces when this was all said and done, when we faked the break up and I was expected to just go on like nothing had happened — our deal done, the piper paid.
How could I ever forget the way it felt for him to press his hand against the small of my back when we walked in and out of restaurants?
How was I supposed to erase the memory of his mouth on mine, of his hands in my hair, claiming me and driving me mad?