Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 35305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35305 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 177(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 118(@300wpm)
I think she'd rather be tortured on a rack than go.
"I might," she mumbles, her eyes wide and stricken. "I've never been on a blind date before. What if he takes one look at me and runs in the opposite direction, leaving me sitting at the bar by myself all night?"
"Then we're keying his car and egging his house," Jazz swears, her eyes flashing behind the counter. "It'll be the least of what he deserves for being too blind to see what's right in front of him."
"You mean the ball of barely functioning anxiety?" Sarah retorts, her voice shaking too much for the sarcasm to come through.
"No. I'm talking about the shy goddess who knows every action movie ever made, can read an entire 800-page book in a day, knows how to shake her ass, and looks like a million dollars," Jazz says, smirking at her. "You're beautiful, Sarah. If your date doesn't see it, fuck that guy."
Sarah laughs quietly, her cheeks pink.
"Jazz is right," I say, smiling at her. "You are beautiful. Especially in that dress."
"Are you sure you don't need me to stay?" she asks me, also for the fifth time. "I can cancel."
I almost give her the out she obviously wants. It's clear she doesn't really want to go. Frankly, I'm not sure why she signed up for a dating service to begin with, not because she's shy and anxious, but because I'm almost positive she has feelings for Olive's brother, Jasper. She adamantly refuses to talk about him, but anytime he stops in to see Olive, she can't keep her eyes off him.
She's desperate for an excuse—any excuse—to call this date off.
But even if this guy isn't the one for her, it's about time she went out and had a little fun. Maybe it'll give her the courage she needs to face her feelings for Jasper.
"You absolutely cannot cancel," Olive cries, stepping out of the back with her hands on her hips, ready for battle. "You're going on your date, or I'm disowning you!"
"You can't disown me. I know all of your secrets."
Olive just glares at her. "You're going, Sarah. I'll tie you up in my car and carry you to the restaurant myself if I have to do it."
Jazz nods, backing her up.
Who knows? Maybe it'll work out for her. Something around here needs to work out right for once.
Things were going so great with Lincoln before he found out I wasn't putting in a bid. Like…freakishly great. But things have been…weird since he found out that he's getting the building. He still says all the right things. He even spent the night with me again the night before last, before heading back to San Francisco yesterday. He kept me up all night, giving me orgasms until I couldn't take any more. He looks at me like I'm the most important thing in his world.
But he was acting weird before he left, almost like he was hiding something. And then he rushed back to his office to handle an emergency at work.
I don't even know when he'll be back. He didn't say.
It's making me nuts. We haven't talked about the building again since lunch the other day, but it feels like a mountain standing between us, bigger than it was before he knew I wasn't putting in a bid.
I don't know what to do about it, either. But I'm beginning to feel like Jazz was right. There's no way this is going to work when it started how it did—with us on opposite sides, fighting over this building. Maybe we were foolish to think it could be more.
The thought kills me a little. It's been killing me ever since he left. I don't want this to be over. I don't want to ruin something so damn good because I'm in my feelings. But it's so damn hard to untangle the way I feel. He makes me crazy happy. And losing this place makes me crazy sad. It's all twisted up together with the exact same starting point. How do you go about separating something that shares the same thread?
I don't know.
"You're quiet," Jazz says once Sarah is on her way to meet her date, with Olive leaving behind her to go home. "You okay?"
"Yeah, fine." I huff a breath, my shoulders hunching. "No. I think maybe you were right."
"I usually am. About what this time?"
"Me and Lincoln," I whisper. "Maybe we aren't meant to work out, and I was stupid to think we could."
"I never said that," Jazz protests.
"It's true, though, isn't it?" I ask, my eyes on the woodgrain of the counter. It's blurry with tears. "He was so weird before he left yesterday. It's starting to feel like maybe I'm deluding myself into thinking this could work."
"Do you want it to work?" she asks.