Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 97382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97382 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 390(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Jordie Thomas: I knew I shouldn’t have started anything with her when I was so messed up, but I did, and then I had to let her go. I was going to ruin her life.
Kacey Thomas: It took me a while to realize you can’t help a person who doesn’t want to be helped.
Jordie Thomas: I didn’t. I was too far gone—in my own head, and I did everything I could to forget her. I pushed away the only person who ever mattered to me.
Kacey Thomas: That’s when I learned how bad off he was. I tried to help, but he wouldn’t let me.
Jordie Thomas: I couldn’t take her down with me, but then I got clean. And with my head clear, she was first and foremost in my thoughts. All the time. I was in rehab when my niece was born, and it wasn’t the photo of her that made me want to be sober. It was a photo of Kacey holding Mena. All the feelings I had for her came rushing back in full force, and I knew there was no choice but to get her back.
Kacey Thomas: I didn’t make it easy. I was dating someone else.
Jordie Thomas: Who drove a fucking Prius and said sorry when he knocked someone into the boards.
Laughter.
Kacey Thomas: He wasn’t Jordie, and I knew I couldn’t live a lie. We found our way back to each other.
Jordie Thomas: And that’s how I know that the love of your life can change everything. I got sober, I played harder, I became the man I knew she deserved. All for her.
When I pull open the door to Student Services, Charlotte Paxton looks up from her computer, and her smile dissolves. While she may have the Sinclair green eyes, she is a Paxton through and through. Wavy blond hair, big doe eyes, and a rather large nose that somehow fits on her face. Her top lip is bigger than her bottom, and she has the cutest little gap between her teeth. She’s wearing a Bullies tee that sets off the color of her eyes in the best way.
I’d know because all my teal Bullies shirts do the same. It’s how I draw in the girls who like sucking my cock—as Ambrosia so beautifully said. Charlotte crosses her arms over her chest and leans back, her eyes on me.
Out of all my cousins, she is my favorite female one.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my cousin Angie, but she is so much older than me, we never really clicked. Then she moved, ghosting all of us, met the love of her life, and is now living her dreams. She mainly just talks to her parents and only says something in our cousins’ group chat when we post anything about plants.
I got her a gift card to a nursery over in South Carolina, and she cried when she opened it.
She’s a weirdo, that one.
Max and Ryder, Angie and Charlotte’s brothers, who are twins, are my boys. Max plays on the team with Louis and me, while Ryder is a badass swimmer for Bellevue. He won a bronze medal a couple years ago and has his eyes set on a gold. I’m close with all my cousins, even the younger ones, but Charlotte, she’s my favorite. Not only is she a damn good time, but she is just steady. She is always there for me and always has a snack.
I’m a hungry fucker.
I thought I was her favorite cousin, but the way she’s looking at me like I stole her last piece of cake has my brows furrowing.
Weird.
I pull out my AirPod, thankful it pauses Ambrosia’s podcast without my having to. Yes, I know I had a lot of shit to talk about her podcast, but I’ve been listening for the last couple weeks and I’m hooked. She’s hilarious and witty. Her voice is so soothing, and fuck, is she hockey smart. She’s quick on her feet, and I find myself grinning as I listen to her raspy voice that has a bit of a Latin flair to it. It’s refreshing, and it only makes me want her more.
But Ambrosia Mercer doesn’t play.
It’s insane to me, because all girls want me. I haven’t met one who isn’t related to me who doesn’t want me. That is, until Ambrosia stood before me, her shoulders back, looking like a fire-breathing dragon rather than a cute little fiesta. I honestly can’t explain what is going through my head. One minute, I don’t care. I don’t want to cater to anyone, make sure they are happy or feel wanted. But now, yeah, now I want to make sure Ambrosia feels all that.
And more.
I won’t admit this to anyone, not even Louis, but Jordie Thomas’s story got to me. I don’t know Jordie personally, but hearing his struggle, listening to him fight for himself to be the man he thought his wife wanted… I mean, you have to be dead inside not to feel something. It was so easy to ignore all the other guys who came on the show, believing their game had been elevated the moment they met their person, but Jordie… I couldn’t ignore that. I don’t know if it was his story or how you could hear the emotion in Ambrosia’s voice, but it made me feel.