Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71565 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 358(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 239(@300wpm)
I fidget in my seat and then ask if he had a good day at work.
“The afternoon was pretty tedious. I had to sit through a meeting with a raging hard-on.”
“Sorry,” I mumble. I don’t even mumble it sarcastically.
“What’s going on here, Boots? No snappy retort from you?” We’re stopped at a light by the hospital. An ambulance whizzes past, the red and blue lights slicing through the car.
“Nothing is going on.” I shake my head and sit up straighter.
“Ah, you finally Googled me, didn’t you?” he says, smirking.
“Um, yeah.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t act differently.”
“Is that why you like me? No one else will call you an asshole to your face?”
“It’s a struggle, Boots, a real struggle to find that kind of honesty. I cry into my thousand-thread-count custom-made Kleenex all the time. Sure, I can get Siri to call me an asshole, but it’s hard to take a phone seriously, you know? She lacks the acrimony.”
“Siri does no such thing,” I respond, but I’m smiling.
“I do not lie, Everly Jensen. Do it right now.”
I’m laughing now, but I’m game. I swipe my phone and hit the home button, summoning the Siri feature, and request that she call me an asshole. When she responds in her pleasant robot voice, requesting confirmation that from now on she’ll call me “Asshole,” we both completely lose it.
I’m still calming myself from my giggle fit when we pull into a parking garage. I see a logo for the Ritz-Carlton as we glide past it. Seriously? Okay, yes, I was sorta hoping we could skip to this part, but a hotel? Billionaires are all the same. I’ve only met one, but they’re probably all the same. Arrogant. And weird. A hotel? His house would have been fine.
“I cannot believe you brought me to a hotel.” I gasp. “Is this your version of Netflix and chill? It’s not cool, Sawyer. Not cool.” I’m getting really into it now, waving my arms around. “A hotel? Are you one of those weird billionaires who can’t even take a woman to their house? You said we were going on a date.” I finish in a huff, dropping my hands in my lap.
Your move, Sawyer.
He pulls into a parking spot and kills the engine before turning to me and resting his arm over the back of my headrest. He leans in and meets my gaze head on, pausing for a second before responding.
“I live here,” he says, completely straight-faced. “Not in the hotel, that would be”—he pauses, recalling my wording—“weirdly billionaire of me. I live in the residential tower. In a condo, not a hotel room.”
Oh.
“Also, I’m just parking the car. We’re going to Love Park. It’s a couple blocks”—he points over my shoulder—“that way.”
Well, shit. I’m tapping a finger on my chin trying to think a way out of this fake tantrum when he can’t keep a straight face anymore and grins.
“You are the worst actress, Everly.”
“Am not!” I cannot believe he just said that to me. My drama is on point.
“Are so.”
“Trust me, you would not believe the stuff I get away with,” I boast. Wait. I probably shouldn’t have said that out loud. I frown and bite my lip.
“I don’t doubt it, Boots. You’ve been a constant source of entertainment in my life, that’s for sure. Yet now that I’ve met you, I can’t get enough of you.”
“You don’t think I’m a bit much?” I hold my breath. Everyone thinks I’m a bit much.
“Never.”
Twenty-Seven
We exit the parking garage and he takes my hand like he’s been holding it my whole life, and it’s nice. I’m not sure where we’re going, but as soon as we round the corner from Penn Square to 15th Street I see the lights from Love Park straight ahead.
“You’re taking me to the Christmas Village?” I can feel the grin spreading across my face. Every December there’s an outdoor market reminiscent of the traditional Christmas Villages popular all across Germany. I’ve heard about it, but in my three and a half years living in Philadelphia I’ve never gone.
“I thought we could walk around a bit and then get dinner.”
It’s perfect. The weather is cooperating tonight, and it’s just cold enough to make it feel festive without being miserable. The park is lined with wooden booths, featuring an assortment of crafts, pottery, jewelry, toys, almost anything you could think of. And food. Pretzels, strudel, gingerbread, crepes, stollen, bratwurst, chocolates and Belgian waffles. Round that off with a couple of wine booths and a hot chocolate stand and what you have is pure joy.
We walk the booths lining the perimeter of the fountain, currently replaced with a giant Christmas tree that must be two stories tall. It’s packed with people, and we dodge other patrons with my hand still firmly in Sawyer’s. At one booth we find dog treats for his parents’ dog, whose name is Sam, by the way. We compare notes on growing up with mothers so obsessed with reading that they name their children and pets after literary characters or authors. About how much it annoyed me as a first grader to be saddled with an old-fashioned name like Beverly, so I dropped the B and insisted everyone call me Everly until it stuck. But that secretly, I loved every single book ever written by Beverly Cleary and still have each paperback stashed in the attic hideaway above my childhood bedroom.