Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 96600 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96600 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 483(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 322(@300wpm)
“Did you want to stay and dance?” I asked. And for the first time, I realized that I…couldn’t. I didn’t have the balance, my leg was exhausted, and the nerve pain was relentless.
“As much as a fancy ball is every girl’s fantasy, no,” she said with a shake of her head. “I feel like everyone is looking at me and trying to figure out why they haven’t seen me at the polo grounds. But hanging out with Scott? It’s still kind of awkward.”
“I should have told you this sooner,” I began with a sarcastic sigh. “But Scott is my best friend.”
“I know.” She poked at the remaining frosting on her plate with the tines of her fork. “And you’ve been spending all your time with me lately. You want to hang out with your best friend. I get it.”
I put my hand on her wrist. “You’re not the person who’s been isolating me. You know I don’t blame you for that, right?”
“I mean…. I guess I am the one who got you to leave Ascend Red finally, after you ran away from home.” She didn’t sound convinced about her role in that development.
But she was right. “Exactly. Who knows how long I would have stayed down there? I might have even missed my own mother’s birthday because I was too busy fucking around both literally and figuratively.”
She laughed.
“I have a bad habit of getting into a new relationship and totally disappearing from my friends’ lives for a while,” I admitted. “Right now, all I want to do is be alone with you, doing absolutely nothing but fun stuff. I seriously considered leaving my job entirely when I had to go to work the other day.”
“I think your bank account would survive,” she said dryly.
“Fair. I don’t want you to think you’re interfering in my life or messing it up in some way. I’m perfectly capable of—and was in the process of—doing that all on my own before you came down to Ascend Red,” I promised.
“Confession time? I do that too.” Her face crinkled up in disgust. “Not that I’ve had serious relationships or anything. But I would get these infatuations where all I wanted to do was stay with that person I was infatuated with, doing nothing but, well. Them.”
“See? There’s another thing I love about you. We’re both broken in similar ways.” I was relieved that she laughed, because otherwise, that statement would have sounded grim and judgmental.
“I’m glad we have such healthy things in common,” she added. “Okay. I’m about done with my uncomfortable undergarments. If we’re going to do a movie, I need to change first.”
“Only if I get to peel that dress off of you.” I’d been looking forward to that all evening.
“We could make a quick stop by the library,” she suggested. “Unless you’re insisting on letting your awful punishment stand.”
“My word is set in stone,” I said, because I wasn’t going to let her weasel out of her punishment. I’d said she couldn’t come until eight-thirty in the morning, and I would stick to that.
No matter how painfully hard my cock got at the thought of pushing her up against a bookcase and drowning myself in her pussy.
She curled her lip and went back to morosely drawing patterns in the smeared frosting on the plate.
“Do you want to pout, or do you want to get into your pajamas?” I asked.
She nodded decisively. “Good point. Let’s find my brother.”
* * * *
We made it halfway through the movie before Charlotte passed out cold.
“In hindsight, maybe we should have let her pick what we watched,” I said, giving her a little nudge that made her produce an adorable snore.
We sat on the double-wide seat, Charlotte curled up beside me, her head resting on my shoulder. My T-shirt was rapidly becoming a drool rag.
“Never give her that power.” Scott had put a seat between us; the straight man’s buffer zone. He shook his head, eyes firmly on the screen. “She’s been like this her whole life. Get used to every movie you watch at home turning into a napfest.”
I chuckled.
“If you’re lucky, she’ll wake up halfway through and ask a lot of questions. ‘Who’s that?’ ‘What’s he doing?’ I don’t know, maybe watch the damn thing.” His monotone recitation bore the lengthy suffering of lifelong siblinghood.
“You know, the fact that my girlfriend is your sister might come with some unexpected benefits,” I mused aloud. “You can tell me all these annoying little details.”
“If you want red flags, I’ve got ’em.” He shook his popcorn bucket. “I’m getting more. Want some?”
I held up my hand to decline. “I don’t know how you have room for popcorn after a seven-course meal.”
He stood and went to the back of the small theater, where the old-timey popcorn machine was. “There’s always room for popcorn.”