Total pages in book: 35
Estimated words: 32811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32811 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 164(@200wpm)___ 131(@250wpm)___ 109(@300wpm)
“I don’t want a vacation.” A vacation doesn’t pay the bills.
“Too bad.” He walks off, having delivered his shitty news.
Logan makes a snicking noise and flings an arm across my shoulder. “Don’t worry about it, man. Come over to my place tomorrow and hang with me and the boys. We’ll have a Halo tournament or something.”
“I can’t. I need to work. Thanks anyway.” I pull away and jog toward the bus stop before he can come up with more reasons why I should be happy about my forced period of unemployment.
Sol’s tuition payment is coming up, and so is rent and all the fucking utilities. I know what I’m going to have to do, and it pisses me off to be backed into this corner. The question is whether I’m up front with Sol or lie.
By the time I reach the apartment, I haven’t made up my mind. It’s nearing five, so Sol should be home by now. The music is on inside when I open the door. A girl spins into my arms, laughing. I catch her just as she’s about to whack me with an elbow.
Her pretty lips form a perfect circle. I blink once and then twice, trying to get rid of the filthy thoughts that spring to mind. This is Sol’s friend, Tinsley. She’s 19. She’s ungodly rich. All reasons why she’s off limits.
I push her away and scowl. “What the hell is going on here?”
A hurt look crosses Tinsley’s face, which I pretend not to see. “We’re making dinner.”
“It sounds like you’re trying to raise the dead.” I walk over to the speaker and yank the cord out of the wall. “I’ll eat later,” I say to Sol, whose happy face has turned dark. “I got shit to do.”
“Like what?” Sol yells. “I’m making dinner for you!”
Without answering, I walk into my bedroom and slam the door shut. Of all the people that have to be at my apartment on this crappy day, it’s Tinsley. I snort in unhappy amusement. What shit to do? Well, since Tinsley turned up, jacking off for one. I haven’t known a minute’s peace since Sol turned up with her. Why does my sister’s best friend have to be a woman I can’t have?
CHAPTER 2
TINSLEY
“Maybe I should go.” I worry my bottom lip between my teeth. It was obvious by Leo’s reaction that he doesn’t want me here.
Since the very first day I met Leo, he’s had an utter dislike for me. I’m not sure why. Or what I did to bring out those feelings in him. I try to be nice, but I barely say a few words to him before he walks out of the room, not caring what I have to say.
I should be used to it by now. In the world I come from, what a woman says doesn’t matter. It goes in one ear and out the other. Sometimes you’ll get a little pat on the head for an idea or suggestion but it’s never really considered. I don’t know why it burns when Leo does it to me, but it does.
I guess it doesn’t matter what circles you run in. Men are always jerks. I’ll never forget the first time I laid eyes on him, though. It had been late, and I was hanging with Sol on the sofa watching movies. I'd planned to spend the night wanting to get away from home. He came in the door at one in the morning.
His bottom lip was split down the center. A bruise had already begun to form on his jaw. Yet it hadn’t taken away one bit from how utterly hot he looked. When Sol leaped off the sofa and started shouting about him taking part in underground fighting, I had noticed his raw angry knuckles. His hands are as big as the rest of him. I felt a bit sorry for whoever’s face it was that made his knuckles look like that.
I’d almost been thankful for Sol’s outburst because I couldn’t even seem to form words. Once I locked eyes with his icy cold blue ones, I was struck speechless. For a second, I thought he felt it too. That the world had stopped for both of us. Only he and I existed at that moment. That I’d been right all along and love at first sight was real.
Then he all but sneered and asked who the hell I was. My heart shattered into a million pieces at that moment. Silly, I didn’t even know the man’s name, but somehow he’d claimed my heart that quickly. So I thought, at least. I was a silly girl with silly dreams. What the heck did I know about love? At least that's what my father often said about me. He might have been right. I tend to be too naïve for my own good.