Total pages in book: 96
Estimated words: 91748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91748 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 459(@200wpm)___ 367(@250wpm)___ 306(@300wpm)
I had been holding back on her just so the game wasn’t over too soon, but she didn’t have to know that.
“You want to?” I asked.
She nodded. “Yeah, it’s fun. Number nerd remember?”
I smirked. She was so far from a fucking nerd. “All right, let’s go get this done.”
“Where do we go for this?”
“My room. I’ve got a desktop computer in there with two motherboards, four monitors, and two keyboards.”
Her brows shot up. “That sounds intense.”
“You should see Oz’s setup. It’s double that.”
“Wow.”
I motioned for her to go first because if she led the way, I could look at her ass. When we walked into the great room, Winslet was sitting on the sofa with a cup of tea, which she’d been drinking a lot of lately because of her nausea, and Halo was sitting on the floor, helping Hawks put together a Lego set. They both looked our way.
“There you are,” Winslet said, smiling at Elsie. “I went looking for you earlier. We’re going to take Hawks out to swim after lunch. Want to join?”
No. She was helping me. I started to answer for her, but stopped myself. She didn’t have to help me. She may want to swim. She wouldn’t be alone with them.
“Oh, I’m going to help Forge with adjusting odds, moving the line, prepping the spread for tonight’s games.”
Winslet’s eyes widened. “You understand all that?”
“I like numbers,” Elsie replied. “I’m a finance major.”
“Impressive. All right, go crunch numbers, but if you need some fresh air or get tired of all that, you are welcome to come on out and join us.”
“Thanks,” she replied.
I was feeling pretty damn smug that she’d chosen me over them, but I was tamping it down. I didn’t need those two reading anything into this.
“Fowge! Wook at my twuck!” Hawks called out, scrambling off the floor, carrying his Lego creation high over his head, and rushing over to me.
“That’s great, buddy,” I told him, although it looked nothing like a truck. More like a house with wheels. Halo wasn’t the best with Legos.
“See, Elsie!” he then said, showing it to her proudly.
“That’s very creative,” she praised him, and he beamed.
“It’s a work in progress,” Halo said, biting back at grin.
“I can see that,” I replied and winked at her.
She snickered and picked up what she had been working on. I had no clue what that was supposed to be.
“They come with directions, don’t they?” I asked her.
She nodded. “Yeah …”
“All right, we gotta get to work before Oz starts calling me. He’s an impatient bas—”
“Words!” Halo called out, stopping me before I finished that sentence.
“Right,” I replied. “Sorry.”
“He almost gave an elderly lady a heart attack at the shoe store yesterday, telling the salesman that the boots hurt like a … well, you know,” she said.
“Sonuvabitch,” Hawks clarified, as if I hadn’t already figured that out.
“Hawkins! I told you that is not a nice thing to say,” Halo corrected him.
The sound of Elsie’s muffled giggle as she covered her mouth and turned her head away so that Hawkins didn’t see her made my chest lighter.
“Let’s go,” I told her, grinning, and she continued on the way to my room.
The sound of Hawks arguing with his mother with a list of names who said son of a bitch all the time faded behind us. We were almost out of hearing distance when I heard my name being added. Oops.
When we reached my room, Elsie stepped back for me to open it, as if she weren’t allowed.
I reached around her just to have the excuse to get another whiff of her. I didn’t know if it was her shampoo or what, but she smelled edible. Like … amber and toasted marshmallow.
“After you,” I told her, and she hesitated, then walked into the room.
“It’s so clean,” she said as she stood there, looking around.
“Yeah, well, we do have a housecleaner,” I reminded her. “But I’m not messy. I like things put where they go. I get anxiety if shit is tossed everywhere.”
She gave me an incredulous look. “You get anxiety? I find that hard to believe.”
“And why is that?”
Her left shoulder lifted slightly. “You got that cocky, full-of-swagger personality. Anxiety doesn’t seem to fit in with that.”
I chuckled. “You’d be surprised. And I’m not cocky. I’m confident.”
A smile lifted the corners of her mouth. “That too.”
I wasn’t sure I’d ever enjoyed talking to a female this much in my life. I never took time to really get to know one. They had always been someone I intended to fuck or have suck my dick, and then I moved on. Saylor was like a sister so she didn’t count, and I didn’t enjoy talking to her either. Elsie was an enigma for me. But I wasn’t mad about it. Just not sure what this thing with her was.