Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 135522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 678(@200wpm)___ 542(@250wpm)___ 452(@300wpm)
“You alright there?” he asks in the midst of my struggle.
“Perfect,” I grunt, then finally manage to position myself on the hard edge of the chair, right at the front, free from the cruel humiliation of gravity and soft cushions, and sit upright. “Now we can start.” I already gave myself the pep talk on the way here. I’m ready to be the professional interviewer. I’m ready to do the job and make Burton not regret allowing this to happen.
I open my notebook and prepare at last to begin.
Only to realize, with total bafflement, that my notebook does not appear to contain my interview questions.
It contains a recipe for something called “Cute Tutes”.
I stare down at it, mortified. Two cups heavy cream. Twelve tablespoons of butter “or maybe more”. Six “or seven or so” large eggs, separated. Sixteen ounces of semisweet chocolate chips “or maybe Kisses or M&Ms, I’ll decide later”. Forty-four ladyfingers. Rainbow sprinkles “totally not optional”. Half a cup of “those cute edible ball sprinkles I used for the Grumpy Lumpy Elf cookies last Christmas”. This isn’t even half of the ingredients.
“Are you okay?”
I look up from my notebook. “I … I think I … I brought the …” I look back down at it, as if I might’ve been mistaken. Nope. There’s even a hand-drawn illustration my mom apparently did of a Cute Tute. There’s nothing cute about a Tute. What the hell is a Tute?
I flip through the pages. More recipes. More drawings. How’d I grab the wrong notebook? It was right on my desk. I even almost fell asleep on it around three. Was I really that tired this morning? I finally slap it shut and stare ahead blankly, at a loss.
“Is something wrong?” Cole asks me.
“I’m afraid we can’t do the interview.”
“Oh.” His eyes sink. “Why not?”
“My questions. I left them at home … the whole interview.”
“Uh-oh. That doesn’t sound good.”
I clutch the notebook in frustration, causing it to bend in my grip. I pull my glasses off my face and pinch the bridge of my nose. “I apologize. If you don’t mind, I think I’ll be back in fourteen and a half minutes, maybe fifteen. I’ll return with the right notebook. Sorry about the inconvenience.” I try to stand up, but realize I’ve fallen back into the chair somehow despite my efforts. Freeing myself yet again proves far more difficult a task than it ought to be, as the soft and squishy armchair keeps sucking me right back down into it.
The moment I finally achieve freedom, Cole has stood up at the same time, and our faces nearly collide, mere inches apart, startling us both.
I stare into his eyes, frozen.
He gazes back into mine.
“Do you really need them?” he asks, his voice soft as butter.
My eyes swim in his, baffled. I’m nearly cross-eyed from how close we’re suddenly standing. “Of … Of course I need them. How can I do the interview without any questions?”
“We can just … talk,” Cole suggests sweetly.
“Talk?” I blurt out, like I’m allergic to the word.
“Yeah.” With his face so unnecessarily close to mine, I notice every subtle movement. When he draws breath. When his lips curl at the corners, appearing amused. When his eyes widen ever so slightly, indicating surprise. “We can make this easy,” he says with that Cole-brand confidence, showing me just how easy everything comes to him, even speaking words. “You and I can just chat about whatever comes to mind. How’s that sound?”
Then Cole has the audacity to smile.
That dashing, perfect, movie-screen smile.
Pearly whites. Flawless lips. The faintest hint of dimples at the corners of his mouth. The way his face lights up like the sun when he smiles, pouring all of his beauty and charm onto me with such laughably minimal effort.
“Don’t you want to chat freely with me, Noah?” he asks, his smile deepening.
Why is he being so irresponsible with that smile of his?
Doesn’t he know how it can affect people around him? How it can be confusing?
How it can be devastating?
The next second, he grabs his thigh and hisses out, dropping right back into his chair. “Oh, fuck!”
I take a step back, alarmed. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Ch-Charley! H-H-Horse! Fuck!”
Without thinking, I drop to my knees in front of the armchair, at his feet. “Here?” I ask, placing my hands on his left upper thigh where he seems to be helplessly and feebly grabbing at.
“Higher!” he squeaks like a chew toy.
I slide my hands up his thigh a few inches. “Here?”
“H-Higher! Urgh!”
My hands slide into his shorts. “Uh … here …?”
“Almost! Almost! Fuck, this is a bad one …!”
My fingers slide even further up his shorts.
The top of my hand grazes something else.
Something firm yet pliable.
His bulge.
Through his underwear.
“Here?” I ask meekly.
“Yes!” he groans. “Right there!”
I completely ignore what else my hand is brushing up against as I dig my fingers into his thigh, massaging and working out the knot causing Cole such unrelenting anguish. He grits his teeth the whole time, hissing through them, eyes squeezed shut. I apply as much tenderness as I do strength. I can literally feel the tightened muscle with my fingers, how they’ve knotted up like a baseball.