Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 59939 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59939 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 300(@200wpm)___ 240(@250wpm)___ 200(@300wpm)
Summer Windsor, a former waitress at the Olive, was subletting an apartment owned by her grandmother, and when Summer learned I was currently living in a motel, she offered me her spare room. The rent is peanuts, which allows me to save for college, and I don’t even mind sleeping on the couch whenever Summer’s grandmother comes for a visit. Actually, I kind of look forward to Nana’s visits. For a girl who’d grown up with zero family, sometimes it’s nice having someone dote on me.
As I ride the elevator up to the tenth floor, I glance at my phone again. It’s almost one a.m., which means Summer is either sleeping, staying at her boyfriend’s, or practicing her steel drum.
Please don’t let it be option number three.
My prayers go unanswered—when I walk into the apartment, I’m instantly met by a wave of jingly notes, my roommate’s rendition of “Under the Sea”.
“You’re still at it, huh?” I sigh, tossing my purse on the coffee table before collapsing on the couch.
“The wedding is in three days,” Summer replies from the other side of the room. “I have to practice.”
She’s set up the drum right in front of the small dining room window. The people who live in the building across the alley have screamed at her on numerous occasions to keep her day job. I agree with them, but I can’t deny I find the whole thing kind of amusing. Summer, the blonde-haired, blue-eyed accountant, banging away on a steel drum so that she could play it at a Jamaican wedding reception.
Summer met Tygue, the man of her dreams, during a vacation to Montego Bay. The two fell head over heels for each other, and a month later Tygue moved to New York. They’ve been inseparable for more than a year now, and they’re flying back to Jamaica in a few days to attend Tygue’s brother’s wedding.
Where Summer got the idea to play the steel drum for the joyous event, who the hell knows. I can’t see Tygue asking his girlfriend to do it, so I’m a bit terrified that she’d come up with the idea all on her own.
“I wasn’t expecting you back tonight. Why aren’t you with Tony?” she says, biting her lip in concentration as she bangs away on the large instrument.
“You don’t want to know,” I reply with a groan. I kick off my heels and rest my legs on the glass coffee table.
My ears get a much needed reprieve when Summer stops drumming. Pale blue eyes flickering with curiosity, she rises from the stool and asks, “What happened?”
Before her butt can even land on the sofa cushion beside me, half the story has already spilled out of my mouth.
When I’m done, Summer is laughing uncontrollably.
“Yes, laugh at me,” I say with a frown. “It makes me feel so much better.”
“Oh God, I can’t believe you did that,” she blurts between giggles.
“Well, believe it. Honestly, I’ve never been more humiliated in my life. This even beat the time in fifth grade when that snotty Billy Turner made fun of me for being in foster care.”
“Jeez, that is bad.” She pauses. “Was he hot, at least?”
“Hot is an understatement. He was…” I search my vocabulary for the right adjective and come up empty-handed. “Indescribably good-looking.”
Summer looks intrigued. “Nice body?”
“Oh yeah. And he had that whole rebel thing going on. Messy hair, tattoos, the I’m-too-cool-to-shave thing happening.”
“Oooh, like Colin Farrell!”
“Who?”
“Your ignorance about sexy actors amazes me, Mags.”
“This guy wasn’t an actor. I mean, he did look vaguely familiar, or at least he does the more I picture him in my head, but I think he was just a normal dude trying to get some sleep—until I showed up and practically mauled him.”
“Did he like it?”
I think about the erection I stroked, and fight back a shiver. “Oh yeah.”
“Then no harm done.” She shrugs. “He’ll probably wake up tomorrow and think it was all a dream. He doesn’t even know your name, unless you left your driver’s license on the nightstand or something.”
I tuck a stray hair behind my ear and feel a warm flush spread over my face. “As a matter of fact, I did leave something behind.”
Summer furrows her eyebrows. “What?”
A wail slips out of my mouth before I can stop it. “My underwear.”
After a moment of silence, she releases a high-pitched laugh that has me flinching. “Priceless!” she cries. “That is absolutely priceless!”
My roommate’s laughter brings back the wave of embarrassment I’ve been trying to suppress. All I wanted to do tonight was, well, Tony. Instead, I made an idiot of myself in front of a complete stranger, and now I have to live with the knowledge that I stripped naked, hopped into bed with a guy I didn’t know and stuck my tongue down his throat.
On the bright side, at least I never have to see him again.