I probably won't be updating any more before Tuesday, so here's my chance to wish you all a very merry Christmas. Here's the next chapter, slightly faster than last time, as your gift. If you want to hear the song Bronwyn and Thatcher were jamming to in the car, it's over to the side. Thanks for reading!
The Eleventh Reason
And suddenly, I was transported back in time. Not via fancy contraption, and not very far. Just back to Mia’s wedding, a month ago, where I wore these exact same shoes, and hated them just as much.
I’d never really understood the point of high heels, but, as hypocritical as I was, I wobbled in them down my front steps, across my slip-and-slide of a gravel driveway, and right up to Thatcher’s passenger side door.
He eyed me warily, like I was going to force him into another snowstorm or something. “Hi?”
I was too busy reveling in my latest success – walking ten feet! In high heels! – to bother answering. My brilliant chauffeur, I feared, couldn’t grasp the concept of ‘travel time.’ We were supposed to be on the road, oh, half an hour ago. There was no time for this idle chitchat.
Thatcher, however, seemed to disagree. “Earth to Bronwyn? Ready for liftoff?”
I raised an eyebrow. “Lift off? Are we on a spaceship?”
“No,” he chuckled. “Just making sure you were still with us.”
Apparently, that was all that was required to get Thatcher to pull out of the driveway and onto my street. The secret ‘go’ button that he hadn’t bothered to tell me. If I had know that all along, maybe I’d open every conversation with a witty, verging on cruel, remark.
“What time is the wedding?” I prompted, once he finished laughing at his own joke. God, he was prone to stuff like that, which, in the outside world, would probably deem him a social outcast. But this was coming from … well, me.
Thatcher shifted in his seat, guilty. “One.” There was a pause and then, “we’ll make it.”
“Unless we really are on a rocket ship, I doubt it.”
“Pessimist.” Now that we hit the first main road – ironically, Main Street – the speedometer was verging on fifty, leaving me with the impression that he was trying to prove me wrong. Or purposely kill us.
“And this is optimistic?”
“Something like that.”
Already two conversations had been born and died those slow, painful deaths. The kind equivalent to swallowing a bottle of probably poisonous laundry detergent or contracting a pancreatic infection. If those are actually valid causes of death. I was starting to fear, deep down, in the pit of my soul that found myself enjoying my time with that, that we were incapable of having a normal conversation. The horror.
“Well.” Apparently Thatcher noticed this too. “You look nice today.”
YOU ARE READING
99 Reasons Why It Wasn't Love
RomanceBronwyn Kirk doubts that anyone can be as much of a romantic wreck as her - until she meets Thatcher Lucas, divorcee, bad driver, and determined to find out about Bronwyn's past.
