CHAPTER ONE – SAYLOR
RULE ONE: YOU’RE ONLY SUPPOSED TO USE ONE EYE WHEN YOU WINK.
Let me tell you how freaking over love triangles I am: completely, utterly, so-fucking-over-it-I’m-never-reading-one-again.
At least that was what I told myself last week.
Do you know how long it lasted?
I don’t want to answer that, if I’m honest.
“Ugh! You dumb bitch!” I yelled at the book, my eyes still scanning the page in the desperate hope this was all a ploy, a bit like the time I watched the last Twilight movie in the cinema and that big war scene with Carlisle’s head happened.
Yeah.
Pinch a bitch, this had to be a dream.
I flipped the page.
This was not a dream. Not even close. This stupid idiot in the book was picking the wrong guy. I mean, sure, the other guy was a little bit of a bad boy and was kind of part of the mafia, but that was all the more reason to choose him!
Not that I was in the habit of dating someone in the mafia. No, thank you. Too much blood and blackmail and money laundering for my liking. But I’m just saying that if a hot, tattooed mafia leader was all over me calling me princesa, you bet your left tit I was going to choose him.
But no.
This bitch, Callie, was choosing Mr. Safe.
Literally Mr. Safe. He owned a bank.
I would put my life savings on the mafia dude having more money than this guy who seemed like a rip-off of the Rothschilds or something.
Don’t worry. It was fine. I didn’t have a lot of life savings. Any I did have were already in my share of Bookworm’s Books… And apparently a new line of travel mugs.
It was one I approved of. Everyone needed more mugs in their life.
Everyone especially needed a travel mug that said, ‘MY BOOKS ARE HOTTER THAN THIS COFFEE.’
I’d wanted to make one that said ‘I LIKE MY PORN ON THE PAGE,’ but Holley had vetoed it.
Kinsley had abstained from voting, so the idea was shelved.
Temporarily. I was going to find a way to make that happen. Even if I just made it for myself.
Personally, I thought it would be a great seller, but here we were.
I flipped the page of the book again. Yep. There it was. Callie had chosen the stupid banking dude who couldn’t find a g-spot to save his life.
Hey, those were her words, not mine. She’d literally said that in chapter six when she’d bonked him against the wall.
Who in their right mind would choose the guy who could get lost in a bread aisle? It didn’t bode well, if you asked me.
Unfortunately, nobody had asked me. Which was why I was so annoyed at this book.
“Oooh, you stupid bitch!” I hissed at the page, shaking the book. “What’s wrong with you? Why are you like this? Do you hate yourself? Why don’t you want to fuck the hot mafia guy forever?”
“I’m no woman, but I’d assume it’s because he’s in the bloody mafia, Saylor.”
I jerked my head up at the sound of my roommate’s voice. “When did you get here?”
Dylan raised his eyebrows. “Just in time to hear your little tirade at the people in your book. What did they do now? Did they have a little misunderstanding that could have easily been resolved if they’d just talked? Like when she saw the guy with a woman on the train who turned out to be his sister?”
“It’s a different book, actually,” I retorted. Smartass. “She chose the wrong guy.”
“So like what happened in three other books this week.”
“Look. It’s not my fault I like a bad boy.”
“As evidenced by your long string of completely successful relationships with men from the mafia.”
I closed the book and sat up straight. “Look, it’s not my fault I live in a place where the mafia aren’t.”
“I don’t know about that.” He kicked off his shoes and headed for the kitchen. “There’s a pretty serious betting ring at the senior center right now. Something about which duck Mabel is going to kill with her antics first. Even she’s trying to bet on it, but that’s rather a conflict of interest, isn’t it?”
“That’s a rather morbid thing to be betting on. Even for my grandmother.” I didn’t understand her obsession with those freaking ducks. They were dirty, smelly, and made a bigger mess than a room full of toddlers unsupervised with finger paint.
“They were talking about a poker ring,” Dylan continued, clicking the button on the electric kettle to make it boil. “I’m not sure how they plan to pull it off. They don’t have access to the basement.”
“Why would they need access to the basement?”
“It’s an underground one they’re planning. I thought that was obvious. It’s hardly secret if it’s in the main room while they watch dodgy gameshow reruns.”
“Right.” I paused. “Why is being around them a lot like trying to herd cats into a bathtub?”
“Interesting analogy.” Dylan poured boiling water into his mug. “But it sums up our twice-weekly yoga sessions pretty accurately.”
I shuddered. I did not want to think about the residents of the senior home doing yoga in Lycra. Although watching them try to get up from either the downward or the upward dog could be interesting…
“You’re thinking about them trying to get up off the floor, aren’t you?” He peered over his shoulder at me, a smile playing on his lips.
“It just seems counterproductive,” I said, trying to keep a straight face. “Surely they don’t bend that way anymore.”
“Well, the exercises are modified.” He removed the teabag from the mug and carried it to the trashcan using his teaspoon. He dumped it in, and it hit the bottom of the can with a thump. “A lot,” he added as an afterthought. “It’s not yoga the way you do it, Saylor. It’s for the elderly. And even then, you don’t always do it right, either. YouTube is not a yogi.”
“I would hope they’re not doing it the way I do it. I can’t imagine Agatha with her butt in the air doing down the downward dog.” Then I frowned. “And I take offense to your criticism of my yoga. You’re not a yogi, either. You’re a personal trainer.”
“Well, I know how to do yoga correctly. Unlike that nutso on your YouTube videos. Not that you ever really do it anyway.”
“Nutso? What’s a nutso?”
“A crazy person. Also, Agatha has tried it. The downward dog.” He sat on the sofa next to me and set his cup of tea on the coffee table. “It took three people to get her up. Honestly, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
I put my book next to his cup and rolled my eyes. “I don’t know why you agreed to do a senior yoga class. It’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. They can barely even pick up their own glasses.”
“Oh.” He winced, then shook his head. “You make it sound like they’re all on their deathbeds, sweetheart.”
I hated it when he used pet names.
Sweetheart. Darlin’. Love.
He tossed them out the way beads were tossed at Mardi Gras, and they may as well smack me in the eye like the beads did once.
His stupid British accent was like sugar—delicious, addictive, and liable to leave people high.