Total pages in book: 167
Estimated words: 164557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 164557 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 823(@200wpm)___ 658(@250wpm)___ 549(@300wpm)
It sounds like Blake will have a busy Thanksgiving too. Her family’s spending it with all her parents’ friends and their kids.
Me, I was happy to hear we’re keeping it low-key this year. Immediate family only. I prefer the quieter holidays. Gives me more time to spend with my parents.
“Never more than six months,” Faith says in response to Blake. She gasps. “Holy shit, I’m a seasonal dater.”
I snicker into my tea.
“How about you, Charlotte?” Blake asks curiously.
“Almost two years with my ex. And in high school, I didn’t have a regular boyfriend. I was too busy to date.”
“I’ve never had a relationship,” Blake admits.
I give her a sidelong glance. “How’s it going with Isaac?”
All I currently know about the situation is that she went on a date with him. He took her to the movies in Hastings and did not get a kiss good night. The end.
Blake Logan is the least forthcoming person I’ve ever met. I swear, it’s as if secrecy is woven into her very fabric, which makes me wonder what kind of shenanigans she gets into that nobody knows about. Maybe she leads her own double life. A…Blakey to my Charlie. Maybe she races cars in the middle of the night and sleeps with multiple hockey players too.
“Have you seen him again?” I press.
She shrugs. But I see her fighting a smile as she sips her drink.
“Oh my God. You have.”
Another shrug.
“How many times?”
After a beat, she caves to the gossip demands. “Three times total.”
“Have you slept with him?” Faith asks with a grin.
When Blake shakes her head, I try not to raise my eyebrows. I can’t envision Isaac Grant being okay with moving at this glacial a pace. The man was ready to bang me after flirting for five minutes outside the Coffee Hut. His reputation is not just a fabrication of the rumor mill. It was earned.
The memory of my interrupted evening with Isaac elicits a twinge of guilt. I’d planned on telling Blake about it after he showed up at the house making a big production of asking her out, but it slipped my mind once things with Will and Beckett ratcheted up.
Now that she revealed she’s been regularly seeing him, though, I need to be up-front with her.
“So,” I start, reaching across the table to steal Faith’s glass. Her jaw drops as she watches me gulp down some sangria. “Sorry,” I tell her. “Need the liquid courage.”
From the corner of my eye, I see Blake frowning at me. “Liquid courage for what?”
Faith now wears a knowing look. As my emergency contact and murder preventer, she’s the only one who knows my connection to Isaac Grant.
I move my chair, angling it toward Blake. “This is super awkward, but for the sake of full disclosure—and before you decide to have sex with the guy—you should know that Isaac and I fooled around once. Before you ever met him,” I hastily add.
Her eyebrows soar to her hairline. “What? You hooked up with Isaac?”
The guilt pulls harder at my gut. “Yes. We didn’t have sex, though. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before—”
She surprises me by waving her hand, unfazed. “No, I don’t care at all. You didn’t even have to tell me. I’m just…” Her eyes are wide with amazement. “Shocked. You’re the last person I’d have expected to engage in random hookups with football players.”
I don’t take offense to that. My carefully crafted Delta Pi persona is so effective, nobody would ever suspect about my lively sex life. That’s the whole point of the persona.
“I know. It’s very unlike me. But…I was bored” is the only answer I can think of.
Faith covers her snort with a cough.
Blake isn’t fooled. “Nope. Like I told you before—I know there’s more to you than meets the eye. This just deepens the mystery.”
As per the best friend vows we’ve taken, Faith intervenes on my behalf. “Anyway, now that we’ve cleared the air, I want to know more about these dates you went on,” she says to Blake. “You said no sex, but how about kissing?”
Once again, the freshman reverts to guarded mode. “Maybe.”
“Good kissing?” pushes Faith.
“Very good. He’s not what I expected,” Blake admits.
“So he’s not a cocky football player with a sense of entitlement?” I can’t help but tease. Because that’s exactly what I pegged Isaac for, and my time with him didn’t disprove that hypothesis.
“No, he’s definitely that. But he’s also got a sweet side. He texts me every morning and every night to say good morning and good night. He’s…kind of a sap.”
This surprises me almost as much as Isaac Grant waiting more than three dates to have sex. But my scientific brain can easily pinpoint the solution here: human nature. Biology. We are creatures wired to find a mate, and generally speaking, it’s the male of a species that chases the female. The female plays hard to get because she has more options. She holds all the cards. Which makes the males work harder, puff up their feathers, and do whatever it takes to beat out the competition.