Total pages in book: 187
Estimated words: 184867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 924(@200wpm)___ 739(@250wpm)___ 616(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 184867 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 924(@200wpm)___ 739(@250wpm)___ 616(@300wpm)
“You took your revenge.”
The most beautiful, heart-wrenching smile forms on her lips. We both know the duplicitous nature of that smile. How, on the one hand, she’s overjoyed to end this chapter of her life, while on the other, the guilt of knowing she killed my father will forever stay etched within her soul. “I did.”
But if she hadn’t ended his life, mine would have been forfeited.
And I am forever grateful she chose me. Even if it cost my brother and me our own blood.
“If your father was here … I just know he would tell you how proud he is of you.”
She breathes out a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
Blaine
Weeks later
Crystal sits beside me on the bench beneath the tree in the rose garden and pats her thighs.
“Do we really have to do this?” Ares grumbles.
“Yes. Stop complaining,” I reply.
Caleb sighs out loud and lays his head on Crystal’s lap, his legs splayed over my lap and the edge of the bench.
“How long is this going to take?” Ares asks, sitting on the bench’s armrest next to Crystal.
I rub my forehead. “Do you guys really have such a short attention span?”
Ares folds his arms. “No one ever asked if I wanted to do this.”
“Do it for me, please?” Crystal begs, looking up at him with those sweet eyes of hers.
She knows just how to wrap all of us around her pretty little fingers.
Ares’s eye roll makes me chuckle. “Fine.”
“Great,” I say. “Then let’s begin.”
“With what?” Ares asks. “What book is this even? What’s the genre?”
“Romance, darling.”
“Romance?” both boys say in tandem.
Caleb tries to lean up. “Nuh-uh, I ain’t reading that shit.”
“No one asked you to read. I’m reading it to you,” I reply.
When he moves his legs off, I grab them and place them back on top of me where they were before. “Stay.”
“Jesus,” he grumbles.
“Caleb, just shut up and listen,” Ares growls at him.
“What? Like you don’t feel the same way.”
“She wants us to do this together,” Ares says, throwing his hand over her shoulder. “So let’s just get it over with.”
“Yes. I want us to have more bonding time,” she says, melting my heart.
“You’re so sweet. Whatever did we do to deserve you?” I say, pecking her on the cheek.
“Enough with the slickness,” Caleb says. “Just start already.”
“Chapter one? Or chapter fifteen?” I wriggle my brows.
“What’s the difference?”
“The spice.”
“Oh yes, all the spice,” Crystal muses, biting her lip.
“Of course, you’d pick that chapter,” I reply, winking.
“Well, if you want spice, I’ll give you all the spice you desire later,” Ares says, slipping his hand down her shirt. “Start reading, then. Let’s see how far you get before she begs you to put it down and play out the scene instead.”
“Oh …” A mischievous grin spreads on my face. “Now that’s a plan I can definitely get behind.”
Caleb
Months later
“So wait, let me get this straight … first, you tell me you want to be close again, and now you’re dating Crystal and Ares together?” Nathan sloshes his coffee around in his cup.
I shrug and take a sip of my own. “You make it sound more complicated than it is. And I already told you I wanted to be friends.”
“You are complicated,” he rebukes.
I snort. “Aren’t we all?”
“True,” Nathan says, taking a sip. “But I never expected you to succumb to the power of pussy.”
“Takes one to know one.” I wink.
He shoves me. “Always the fucking know-it-all.”
“Hey, I’m just saying, maybe we’re not so different after all.”
“Just say you miss me,” he retorts.
I tilt my head and pout. “Fine. I miss you. Can we be friends again?” When he narrows his eyes, I add, “Please?”
He sighs out loud. “Fine.”
I throw my arms around him. “Thank fuck.”
“Watch it!” Nathan yells. “Almost spilled my coffee on my lap.”
“Like pain ever stops you,” I retort.
“True.” He snorts. “But I’m normally the one dishing it out, not receiving it.”
“Maybe that’s why we weren’t a good match after all,” I say, winking.
“What are you guys talking about?” Crystal says as she sits down beside Nathan.
“Oh, nothing, just two bros hanging out,” I muse.
Until I feel a familiar set of hands squeezing my shoulders, making my whole body turn to mush. “A bro that happens to be your ex?” Ares mutters.
“I’m taken. I’m taken,” Nathan says, hovering off his stool like a bug scared to be squashed.
Crystal snorts from her seat. “I missed this. I missed when we were all just … happy.”
I look at her and feel my heart swell with the need to smile.
I haven’t smiled in such a goddamn long time.
But after losing my mother, Crystal’s the only one who’s managed to bring that smile back to my face. And even now, when I lean in to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, the blush on her cheeks makes me feel like the world might not end today. Or ever, as long as I have these two with me.