Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 145123 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145123 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Sam: But like, for real, if you and Chase get together, your ass BETTER call me.
Sam: Love you. Don’t hate me for too long.
Well, shit. If I thought my crush couldn’t get any more out of control before, my dear, insane sister just shot that assumption right to hell.
Sunday, May 28th
Brooke
Driving for the past two days straight could have—and by all accounts, should have—been miserable. I’m not that much of a traveler on a regular basis, and nineteen hours riding in anything isn’t for the weak.
Not to mention, the two days before that were some of the weirdest I’d ever experienced. With all that combined, I never would have expected to have the kind of fun Chase and I had on the way here.
We talked and joked and took turns singing radio karaoke, along with making several stops at some of the United States’ greatest landmarks.
The World’s Largest Ball of Yarn.
A plastic longhorn cow the size of my apartment.
The Thing in Dragoon, Arizona.
And perhaps the least impressive of them all, Sedona.
Ha, kidding. Sedona was clearly amazing, and both of us remarked on the fact that it’d be worth a whole trip of its own one day in the future.
We didn’t make any actual plans, but it’d be safe to say I’ve been hanging on to it ever since.
We also worked on the book, which is a huge accomplishment, given my track record so far, and I’m starting to feel like it may come together into a real story. Sure, I’m still convinced it will leave me with some form of chronic PTSD and inflict emotional scars until I’m rotting in a grave six feet under, but other than that, I can breathe a little easier.
Finally, though—finally—we made it to Vegas this morning, and instead of staying locked up in the motor home, we promptly made our way out to explore the city.
I didn’t even have to convince Chase to play tourist with me. He was just as ready as I was when we arrived. Though, it could be said the long drive gave him the nagging itch of seeing something other than the inside of our bus for a little while.
And it only took two casino tours, three bodegas, Planet Hollywood, the Bellagio fountain, and some really sore feet later, for the frozen milky goodness of my favorite dessert to call my name loud enough to bring us here—to Serendipity3.
Chase sits in a chair beside mine, and the famous frozen hot chocolate sits right in front of my greedy face. I take a sip through the straw and practically moan. “It should probably be illegal for anything to be this good.”
“I gotta say, I’ve never seen a dessert that big in my life,” Chase remarks, swiping at some of the melting ice cream from my drink with his long index finger and slipping it into his mouth in an erotic move we’re not going to talk about right now.
“You’ve never eaten at the Serendipity in New York? I thought when you said you hadn’t eaten here, you just meant here, the Serendipity3 in Las Vegas.”
He shrugs one casual shoulder. “Sorry to say I meant all of the Serendipitys collectively. Frankly, I didn’t know there was more than one.”
“Well…I guess you’ve just proven yourself to be something other than a woman who was growing up during the most crucial time in her life when the movie Serendipity came out.”
“Which movie was that again?”
“Oh my God, you’re killing me, Smalls.” My jaw drops in shock and then snaps shut on a scoff. “Kate Beckinsale? John Cusack? Relying on destiny to bring them back together? Ring any bells?”
He shakes his head.
I let my hands fall to the table with a whap! and lean toward him with narrowed eyes. “Molly Shannon and Jeremy Piven as the tortured best friends? The gloves? The five-dollar bill? The pivotal ice-skating rink scene with the snow?” My voice rises with each mention. “The search for the copy of Love in the Time of Cholera that she put her name and number in?”
“Nope.” Another shake of his head, but this time, a laugh follows. “I’m sorry. Really, I am, because I can tell my not knowing this is traumatic for you, but no, it’s not sounding familiar.”
“Traumatic is an understatement,” I retort on a sigh and slouch back into my seat. “Chase, this movie was a formidable part of my life as a preteen.”
Another laugh follows. “I really am sorry.”
“Yeah, well, you can apologize by rectifying this mistake and watching the movie.” I tsk my tongue at him. “Until then, we’ll just have to be on civil terms, I guess.”
He smiles all the way into his eyes, and truthfully, so do I. Even with his limited knowledge of one of the great rom-coms of our time, he’s still so handsome it hurts.