Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128083 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 640(@200wpm)___ 512(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
She released a breath and stepped all the way around the planter so she was even more hidden, like him. “I’m not really in the mood for”—she waved her hand in the direction of the pool, where the splashing and squeals of delight were ongoing—“that.” She wasn’t sure why she’d offered that level of honesty except, well, if anyone got it, it would be the boy safely concealed in the corner behind a plant.
He smiled on a breath. “Yeah, me neither. If you take one more small step to your right, no one can see you from any angle. I’ve done the equations.”
She chuckled softly as she considered him. Rex Lowe had been on her periphery since middle school, but she didn’t think she’d ever really taken a minute to look at him. He was one of those people who’d just always been background noise. He was a good-looking guy, but not in the way Hollis was—all toned muscle, cocky swagger, and megawatt smile. Rex’s bangs were too long and flopped over his forehead in a sheet of ebony that hid his eyes, and he clearly didn’t care much about his style. He typically looked like he’d dug in the bottom of his laundry hamper for something to wear, and sometimes his pants were a hair too short. He smelled vaguely like cigarette smoke, though she’d never seen him light up anywhere. Most likely he lived with a smoker. He had some acne on his cheeks and tended to walk slightly hunched over with his hands stuffed in his pockets like he was trying to make himself smaller.
Cami’s eyes moved to the notebook on his lap, the top page filled with numbers and symbols that she didn’t recognize. “So now you’re what . . . devising an escape plan?” she asked, tipping her chin toward whatever he was working on.
He let out a laugh that sounded vaguely surprised, as though she was the last person he’d expected to amuse him in any way. He looked down at his paper filled with equations or whatever and then back at her. “What? You think it’s overkill?” he asked, his lip quirking.
She couldn’t help smiling back. “Probably, considering you could just”—she pointed past the opposite side of the patio—“walk out that gate.”
His smile grew, and their gazes caught before he cleared his throat and looked away. “I have a tendency to complicate things.”
And just like she’d caught him by surprise when she’d made him laugh, she hadn’t expected him to say something like that, something worth pondering, to be honest. It struck her, right then and there, how shallow the conversations she’d grown used to really were, how most of her interactions boiled down to throwaway comments tossed at others with a wink and a smile. Meaningless. Boring. “Hmm,” she murmured, “that’s interesting because I have a tendency to simplify things.”
Their eyes met again, his lips quirking in that same disarmed way, but this time he didn’t laugh. “What have you simplified lately?” They both stared. God, the way he was looking at her, like he cared deeply about her answer, caused a small fluttering at the base of her throat. She raised her hand and put her fingers there, her pulse beating steadily beneath her skin. And she suddenly felt . . . seen, as though she’d been living as a blurry shadow of herself, and she’d just now come into focus and by the most unexpected of people at the most unlikely of times. It was like, for a moment, she’d stepped into an alternate world when she’d ducked behind this potted tree.
What do you see when you look at me?
How odd that she really, truly wanted to know.
Did he even know her name?
“I’m Cami, by the way. And you’re Rex, right?”
His eyes flared slightly like he was surprised that she knew who he was. And again, she saw herself from the outside. Someone who’d gone to school with others for many years and yet had never so much as said their names or met their eyes.
And as she watched him, it occurred to her that Rex was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and she was standing next to him all but naked in her hot-pink bikini. She suddenly wished she had a towel or a cover-up or something to drape over her, which was weird, considering she felt confident in her skin and had never had much of a problem knowing eyes were on her. In fact, she’d relished it because she knew it was a big part of why she’d been accepted into this popular crowd. But Rex . . . he confused her in some way she couldn’t quite define for herself. He very suddenly seemed . . . more than what she’d thought he was. More what, she didn’t know. And here she was complicating her own thoughts after she’d just told him she had a habit of oversimplification.