Total pages in book: 58
Estimated words: 57139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57139 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 286(@200wpm)___ 229(@250wpm)___ 190(@300wpm)
I yawned, pretending I wasn’t having a heart attack. Or an internal meltdown. Or both.
“I’m gonna grab more water then think about Sunday night’s date. You okay?”
“Yeah,” she croaked. “Just hot.”
That made two of us.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
HARPER
Saw you on insta, damn girl, been eating those cookies? I like a little extra on my meats YA FEEL? Text back, boo, I got a proposition you won’t wanna pass up, much love, GYAT!
—Stellan
It was that time of the week. Ezra sent me a skull emoji, then: see you in five. He’d stayed at his own apartment last night, and I tried not to think about how much I hated it when he did that. Fifteen minutes later, we were in his car, heading toward my parents’ place. It was Sunday, but we weren’t dumb enough to call it Sunday Funday.
My parents lived on the outskirts of Seattle on what I would generously call a homestead—except they were the type of people who called it that while paying other people to actually homestead. It was all my dad’s fault. He thought it would be a good creative outlet for my mom’s painting and a perfectly reasonable excuse to buy an ungodly number of tractors he’d never use. He and Ezra fought daily via text about turning the property into a real generational farm, rather than the curated backdrop it was.
After years in corporate, my dad had developed an actual allergic reaction to technology. He carried a flip phone, refused to touch Microsoft Office, and sneezed whenever a notification dinged at the dinner table. If you wanted to keep your meal sneeze-free, you put your phone on silent. The doctor called it a nervous reflex from “too many years under fluorescent lighting surrounded by radiation.” Dad called it “urban warfare” and now soothed himself by running tractors like they were white-noise machines. He texted in single words—hi, ok, how u, bye—and never, ever used emojis. He claimed seeing them might trigger a seizure.
He “followed” my journey online by having Mom download my posts, paste them into an email, and print them out. Even then, I’m convinced his blood pressure spiked.
Ezra turned into the long gravel driveway: Holloway Family Farms.
He groaned like it came from his soul. “It’s the sign.”
I rolled my eyes. “Ezra, it’s always the sign.”
“They keep it crooked just to piss me off.”
“Maybe if you hadn’t snuck onto the property to fix it—dressed like you were auditioning for the next Mission Impossible—and then gotten caught on the Ring camera, my dad wouldn’t have decided, ‘Crooked it stays.’”
Ezra shot me a look. “Did you have to say it in his fake Southern accent? He was born in Everett.”
I shrugged. “He says he developed it from visiting the South.”
“Once,” Ezra snapped. “And it was the airport, Harper.”
I patted his hand. “Good thing you don’t have to call him Dad, huh?”
“It would be a nightmare to call a man father who doesn’t acknowledge iOS updates. I’d never sleep again.”
“Then don’t. Let’s just eat Mom’s French toast, farm-fresh eggs, and drink before noon. Plus, you know Frodo loves you.”
Right on cue, gravel crunched under the tires and the front door burst open. Frodo—their hairless Xolo—launched herself across the yard at warp speed. Ezra killed the engine, got out, and immediately had an armful of dog. Frodo’s licks shoved his glasses askew, giving me a rare, unfiltered view of his captivating hazel eyes and ridiculous lashes. Then, just as quickly, he shoved the glasses back on like he was protecting his secret identity.
The front door slammed open. Dad stepped out in brand-new blue Wranglers and a crisp white shirt, hands on hips. “Saw your Tik.”
I could feel Ezra rage counting to four before answering. “Tok. It starts with Tik ends with Tok. Full word.”
Dad narrowed his eyes. “You again?”
Ezra held Frodo between them like a shield. “You can full-name it—Tik, Tok—”
A violent sneeze escaped between dad’s lips before he wiped his mouth and rubbed the water from under his eyes.
“Instagram,” Ezra added, walking past. Another sneeze. “Facebook!” he called over his shoulder. Another sneeze.
“Son of a—Ezra! Harper, why are you bringing that good-for—” Sneeze. “—nothing—” Sneeze.
I leaned against the car, deadpan. “Sneeze. Sneeze. Sneeze—Kid around.”
Silence. Then Ezra’s voice rang from inside:
“YOU WERE BORN IN EVERETT!”
I flinched while dad points his Samsung Galaxy Flip phone at me. It’s almost like he’s purposefully tossing high school memories in my face by way of his phone. Sometimes I can still feel my fingers sliding over the sad buttons only for the T9 to completely screw me and send something the guy has to translate to even understand, which just takes away all sleuth like levels of flirting and tosses them out the window.
Dad looked like he was about to sneeze again so I sidestepped him and made my way into the farm house and I use the term lightly. It was a modern chic design with reclaimed wood, twelve-foot ceilings, bright colors, some recycled windows from a chapel and well, designer couches that we rarely sat on because my mom valued them more than our own lives. She joked but one time Ezra sat on one and I suddenly understood the show Snapped. I’ve never seen Ezra move so fast in my entire life, thank God for his Korean heritage, immediately he started bowing which shook her out of her stupor enough to feel bad.