Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 60219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 301(@200wpm)___ 241(@250wpm)___ 201(@300wpm)
“Is Tamara the girl you were with at the game?”
“Yes,” she said. “She’s as close to me here as Tessa and Kat were in Murdock. Really sweet girl. She’s an actress too, but we aren’t really in competition with each other since we’re so different looking.”
“Are you in anything right now?” I asked.
“Nothing playing,” she said. “Rehearsing one that I am doing with Tamara and a couple other friends, actually. But it doesn’t have a performance date set yet.”
“Look at you,” I said. “You made it. You’re doing the thing. I always knew you were going to be someone when I saw you performing in high school.”
“I still can’t believe you saw those plays,” she said, blushing. “I had no idea you were there. Probably a good thing. I would have been super nervous knowing you were out there.”
“Why?” I asked. “You were great. I really liked them. I thought you were really impressive in them. Especially in Our Town.”
“Wow, you saw that?” she asked. “And you liked it?”
“I did,” I said. “It was a little dry, but it was good. And you were great.”
She blushed again and bit her bottom lip. It was such a cute thing to do that I nearly pointed it out. But I held back, letting myself just enjoy her in all her adorableness.
“Why didn’t you say anything to me?” she asked.
It was just like she asked me in the bar, years before. And just like then, I didn’t have a good answer. I shrugged, taking a deep pull of my drink and realizing I had emptied the nectar inside. I didn’t need to alert the bartender. He was already there with another one.
I was sure some of it was because of the people I hung out with. There was a pressure to be a certain person back then, to act a certain way, be seen with certain people, all that. One of those people was my sort-of, on-again, off-again girlfriend at the time.
“Deb,” she said, almost as if she could read my mind.
I huffed a mirthless laugh and took a deep sip of my new drink.
“Deb,” I repeated. “We broke up and got back together so many times between my senior year of high school and the end of my freshman year of college I couldn’t keep track. One day I called her to ask if we were broken up or not because I honestly couldn’t remember.”
“That’s not a great sign,” she laughed.
“No, it wasn’t. It should have been the big glaring one that it wasn’t going to work out, but she was tenacious,” I said. “She would break up with me and read me the riot act over the phone and say she was going to go out with some guy. Then the next day, she would call and apologize and say she just went to sleep that night. I never knew if I believed her.
“To be honest, I don’t know if I cared enough to want to find out if it was true. Our whole relationship seemed to happen in her head with little to no involvement from me. I just kind of went along with it because it was what I felt like I was supposed to do.”
“I can understand that,” Mallory said, her eyes on her glass again and her voice low. I wondered if talking about that hurt her. I decided that, on the off chance it did, I should tell her what had been on my mind for a long time anyway.
“It didn’t matter to me,” I said, “because I never really felt anything for her. You, on the other hand…”
There was a pause as she sipped her drink and waited for a moment to process what I’d said. Slowly, her head turned toward me and cocked sideways again. She looked so cute like that. And her lips… they were so red, so full. So kissable.
“Me on the other hand, what, exactly?” she asked.
I pulled my glass to my lips and took another long sip. I wanted to put the whole thing away just to give myself the extra bit of liquid courage. A decade’s worth of a secret was about to come out.
“Mallory,” I said, turning fully toward her. “I have had a crush on you since high school.”
11
MALLORY
I laughed.
I probably shouldn’t have. I knew I shouldn’t have. But I couldn’t help it.
Here was Graham Miller, famous baseball star, gorgeous millionaire, object of all of my high school fantasies and desires, telling me he’d had a crush on me since high school. Me. The awkward girl with the frizzy hair and the regrettable choice in alt-punk fashion wear. Me, the girl who followed him around like a puppy dog, but at a distance so he could never, ever know.
It was frankly hilarious.
It had to be some kind of line. It didn’t seem like the Graham I remembered to have a pickup line, and there was no reason someone as famous and wealthy as he was to need to schlep to the depths that he was currently sinking to, talking to an old high school acquaintance at a bar. But there was no way he was serious. Was there?