Total pages in book: 191
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182070 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 910(@200wpm)___ 728(@250wpm)___ 607(@300wpm)
And my brother-in-law, all average height and skinny and adorable, was looking at us like he had no idea why we were all staring at him.
“What? You want me to kill him or something? Because one time I went hunting with my dad, and no lie, I fainted when he—”
Dear God.
“B, is there something I should know about you and… and…?” Boogie stuttered, looking somewhere between his mind being blown and the start of being mad.
“Honey,” my sister started to say, her voice almost… a whisper? And why did she look horny? And why did I know what her horny face looked like? “What would make you think there’s something going on with B and Zac?”
“There’s something going on with you and Zac?” Boogie echoed.
What the hell was happening?
My brother-in-law shrugged casually, still sipping his soda without a care in the world… like he hadn’t just dropped a hydrogen bomb on our asses.
On all of us. Seriously.
On Boogie in the form of there possibly being something in the world between his best friend and me.
On Connie who was looking at this man she’d been with for nearly two decades like she didn’t know him… but the little freak liked what she saw.
And on me, for not being as secretive as I’d thought.
Or maybe, actually, he was just a hell of a lot more perceptive than any of us had ever given him credit for.
Then he kept going, lifting an index finger. “Well, Peewee didn’t want to talk about him for years. Now they’re friends again and seems to me like they spend all their time together, and then she moved in with him. Hello, and ya know, I always figured he was a player, but he’s not going to hang out with a girl he doesn’t like.”
“They’ve known each other since we were kids,” my cousin muttered, still looking and sounding out of whack.
Shit.
My brother-in-law snorted. “So? He didn’t see Bianca for ten years. What? You think he’s going to think of her as being a little sister? You’re smarter than that, Boogie. And Yermo told me all about them at Lola’s quince, m’kay? There’s ‘I love you like a sister’ and there’s ‘I love you as a person.’ I know I couldn’t have been the only one to feel the chemistry in that video they did together either… but okay, maybe I was. Man, you two need to pay more attention.”
None of us could say a single freaking thing.
And apparently my brother-in-law took that as a sign to keep going, so he did.
“But, B, did he cheat on you? Lie? Because he seemed like a nice guy, but I’ve never been a White Oaks fan, so I’ll do it. Next time I get a B-12 shot, I’ll save the needle and use it as proof,” Richard claimed, everything about his narrow face totally serious.
“What else do you know that you haven’t told me?” my sister whispered.
“I don’t know anything for sure; I just have my guesses.”
His guesses. This man was wasting his life in the army when he could probably make a fortune being a goddamn psychic—or at least fool people into thinking he was a psychic.
I was stunned.
“What’s going on? Is there something going on with you and Zac?” Boogie asked again, aiming his nearly black eyes at me.
Shit balls.
Scratching the tip of my nose, I held my breath for a second and decided I’d walked right into this—asked for it really, because why had I thought they wouldn’t notice something was wrong with me? They knew me better than anyone. Including Richard.
But one thing at a time, starting with my cousin. “No, there’s nothing going on with me and Zac,” I told him.
He sagged, but it was Connie who sat up straighter before pointing at me. “You’re lying.”
“Don’t use your mom voice on me, heifer. I’m not lying. Nothing has gone on with us other than hugs and some kisses on the cheeks, which I give everybody in the first place.”
My cousin still looked relaxed, wary but relaxed. He knew I wouldn’t lie to him, and that made me feel better. He just wasn’t going to like what I was going to tell him next. That was for sure.
But there was no way around it now.
“But I was dumb and I started to really… like him, as more than a friend. It’s not like I meant for it to happen, but it did. Again. I told myself not to let it happen, but again, it did. And I knew I had no shot in hell of him being interested in me like that, but….” I shrugged, resigned to being in the same damn position all over again—the idiot who fell in love with her cousin’s best friend. And not just any normal, mere man. But Zac Travis. The butt cheeks of Texas. “I’ve just been upset a little because I let my guard down and he did something innocent that reminded me of why I knew better.”