Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
“Not at all.” She gives a little wiggle. “I already have Noelle designing a cake.”
“I can’t wait.”
“Me either, but I need to stop being so sore.”
“Same,” I say, then rub my chest. “I need more Tums.”
She agrees with sympathy in her eyes. “Can you grab me some?”
I chuckle lightly as I get up to grab the bottle, and I take in her space. She changed the sheets on her bed to a soft pink. She’s also hung a photo of Kitty, Phillip, and her. When I see the photo of the two of us when we were at Worlds, in the middle of a jump series, I grin. I like that she has a photo of us in her home. I can tell she tried to clean, but she just stuffed things in places she didn’t think I’d notice. She’s messy on the best of days, and I find it so endearing. I can’t help the smile that sits on my lips as I come back to the couch, handing her Tums.
“So I’m thinking, ‘My Heart Will Go On’ by Celine Dion.”
She starts the song, and I stop it with ease. “I know the song and abso-fucking-lutely not.”
“Jett!” she scolds as I sit down. “She would love it.”
“Listen, we can skate to ‘Reading Rainbow,’ and she’d love it. I want to skate to something that’s us. They picked last time. Let us pick this time.”
“This isn’t for us.”
“I don’t care. I’m not skating to Celine Dion.”
She glares. “She is the queen of ’90s pop.”
“And she can stay there,” I throw back, and her eyes darken as I hit play on “Until the Day I Die” by Story of the Year.
The music fills the space, and when I look over at her for approval, she makes a face. “We can’t skate to this.”
“It’s a classic.”
“No way,” she says, playing some boring piano jam. “We should do slow and pretty so we don’t break anything.”
I scoff before hitting the next song, and “My Own Worst Enemy” by Lit starts to blare.
“Jett! We can’t. Everyone would start singing and not give a damn about us.” On cue, the chorus hits, and we both belt it out, just as any good ’90s kids would.
We dissolve in laughter, but we don’t change the song. I watch as she sings, her eyes squeezing shut when she hits notes she shouldn’t while banging her head to the beat.
It makes me grin, in awe of her. I remember when she got the first iPod when it was released. She loaded it up with all the songs we liked, a bunch of pop-punk hits we enjoyed. We’d sit with one earbud in each of our ears and just sing. Neither of us cared that we couldn’t sing or even that it drove her parents crazy that we sat so close. I don’t think she noticed, but I did.
As she hits play and “I See the Light” from Tangled starts, I give her a dry look. “Disney? Really? Are we ten?”
She snorts. “Kitty loves Disney.”
“And again, I don’t care.” I put on Yellowcard’s “Only One,” and her eyes light up.
“No way. But I do love this song.”
We both bob our heads as we sing and laugh along together. When she puts on Chuck Berry’s “You Can Never Tell,” I can’t help myself. I push the coffee table aside, and we both start dancing like the fools we are, doing the whole scene the way they did in Pulp Fiction.
Our laughter is unstoppable, and I can’t get enough of her.
When the song ends, we fall to the couch and agree that the song isn’t for this skate.
On a sigh, I say, “I want this to be us.”
She throws her hands up, frustrated. “What is us, Jett Cook?”
A slow smile spreads over my face as I look down at my phone. My thumb is shaking as I hit play on “Fall for You” by Secondhand Serenade. When I first heard this song, it spoke to my soul. It’s a perfect mix of slow and fast beats, and for me, it’s perfect.
It is everything I feel about her.
Fable glances down at her hands, wringing her fingers, and I know she knows the song. She leans back on the couch, and I do the same, stretching my arm along the top. I’m not touching her but giving her the support of my body if she needs it. She doesn’t say anything or even look at me, but she sings along with the lyrics. I’m so ensnared by her, I can’t look away. I can only watch as her lips move, and her eyes fall shut so slowly.
When the song ends, she sighs deeply and nods. “Yeah, it could work.”
I don’t say anything. I can’t. I wonder if the lyrics spoke to her like they do to me. When she lifts those sweet green eyes to mine, I take in a sharp breath at the pure torture in her gaze. She swallows thickly, her lips pressing together as she stares up into my eyes. I want to kiss her so badly, but I need her to make the move. If I let myself act the way I want, I’ll ruin everything. I’m desperate for her, but I respect her too much to rush her into anything.