Home > No Words (Little Bridge Island #3)(2)

No Words (Little Bridge Island #3)(2)
Author: Meg Cabot

The Moment

It only took a moment for Johnny Kane to realize that Melanie West was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen—and also that he could never have her.

Because in the next moment, Johnny betrayed her.

Now he has to make a choice: admit the wrong he’s committed, and live with the sorrow of knowing she could never be his … or rewrite both their destinies, and change that moment forever.

Praise for The Moment

“An instant classic.” —USA Today

“At once brilliantly gripping and tragically complex, The Moment is Will Price’s most important—and intimate—work yet.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Utterly compelling and emotionally intense.” —People magazine

“In this, his seventh novel, Will Price has written a profoundly affecting work of stunning moral complexity.” —Publishers Weekly

“Perfect.” —Reese Witherspoon

 

 

CHAPTER TWO


“Excuse me.”

I lifted my sleep mask to see three teenaged girls standing in the aisle beside my seat. “Yes?”

“Sorry to wake you,” said the girl with the lip ring and nearly waist-length braids. “But aren’t you Jo Wright?”

I wondered how she knew. Especially since I’d scraped my hair into a ponytail—hair that, in my author photo, was loose, sexily mussed, and honey blond.

But that photo had been taken before Will Price had destroyed my life, and I’d adopted my current regimen of heavy black eyeliner, all black clothes, and matching black hair dye.

“Uh.” I lifted the glass from the end of my seat rest. “Yes. Why?”

“I told you it was her, you guys.” The girl exchanged excited looks with her companions before turning back toward me. “You’re going to the book festival on Little Bridge Island, Florida, this weekend, aren’t you? I saw your name on the website.”

“Oh.” I was disappointed to note that my glass contained mostly only melted ice. “Yes, I’ll be doing a couple panels and signings there.”

I glimpsed a flight attendant at the end of the aisle observing my interaction with the girls with amusement. I looked meaningfully down at the melted ice in my otherwise empty glass.

The flight attendant nodded and slipped into the galley as one of the other girls—this one in exaggeratedly large horn-rimmed glasses—squealed, “I can’t believe it! I can’t believe it’s Jo Wright! I used to love your books!”

“Oh,” I said again.

I’ve always wondered how I’m supposed to respond to someone who says that they “used to” enjoy my books. Truthfully, it kind of hurt a little to be told by someone that they “used to” enjoy my work. It was nice that they used to, but painful to hear that they no longer did.

Was this how the cast of Friends felt every time someone came up to them and told them how much they “used to” enjoy their show? That had to suck.

Although not as much as it sucked to be me, because Friends earns a lot more in residuals than the animated Kitty Katz television series based on my books ever did.

“Thanks,” I settled for saying, and was relieved when the flight attendant slipped me a brand-new glass of vodka and orange juice, and took away the empty one. “It’s great to meet you. See you when we land!”

Then I took a long sip of my drink—number two, and just as delicious as number one!—and attempted to slide the eye mask back over my face to continue my nap.

“We’re going, too,” said the third girl, this one wearing a leather vest with fringe that reached almost to her knees. “We’re flying all the way from Manitoba just to be at the festival!”

I slid the eye mask all the way back up. Things were getting interesting.

“Wow,” I said. These girls’ parents had to be loaded. Flights from Canada to the Florida Keys in January weren’t cheap. My own, from New York City, had set the festival back almost two thousand dollars. I’d seen the amount on my ticket. “Manitoba. That’s impressive.”

“You know, the Kitty Katz series completely saved my life in grade six,” the girl in the glasses said. “Obviously I know your characters are only cats, but they were so much more than cats to me.”

“Lauren loves cats,” the girl with the braids assured me.

It was at this point that I noticed that the guy sitting in the window seat next to me had paused the movie he’d been watching on his phone and was now listening to our exchange. Not to sound like a snob, but he was a bit scruffy-looking for first class—cargo shorts, a Batman T-shirt (Dark Knight, not Lego, which in my opinion is the best Batman movie, but there’s no accounting for taste), with pale feet shod in flip-flops, along with a goatee.

Goatees are not my favorite, but my friend Bernadette says I’ve got to stop judging men who wear them just because my ex Justin did and he turned out to be a loser.

And of course, we were on a flight to the Florida Keys. My seatmate’s scruffiness could be forgiven. Everyone goes to the Florida Keys for pleasure, not business.

Everyone except for me.

“Jasmine’s right,” Lauren gushed. “I totally love cats. And reading. The Kitty Katz series was so inspiring to me that I decided I wanted to become a writer myself!”

I raised my eyebrows. “Really? That’s great.”

“Thanks! In fact, I’m writing my own book.”

“She totally is!” Jasmine nodded emphatically enough to send her braids swinging.

“Great,” I said, taking another sip of my drink. My free drink!

“Girls.” The flight attendant approached. “We’re going to be making our descent into Little Bridge in a few minutes, so I’m sorry, but I need you to return to your seats.”

“Awwww!” The girls were not happy, especially Lauren. “I was going to ask for a selfie.”

“Well, you can get one with me at the book festival,” I said. “Wouldn’t that be better than one here on the plane? The lighting here is not exactly optimal.”

“I guess.” Lauren continued to look crushed—or about as crushed as a twelve-year-old with perfectly clear skin and rich parents could.

But if Kitty Katz had been her favorite series way back in grade six, Lauren had to be older than twelve. It was so hard to tell how old girls were these days. With all the makeup tutorials out there on YouTube, showing them how to expertly blend bronzer into those hard-to-reach crevices, most of them looked old enough to be in college, or even graduate school.

I felt a prickle of guilt over Lauren’s disappointment. She may only have “used to” like my books, but at least she’d liked them once, and she’d recognized me without my festival badge, the one I’d been urged repeatedly to wear in every communication from the library staff, so that I “could be identified as soon as possible” by the festival’s volunteers, whom I’d been told would be waiting for me at baggage claim.

“We can do a selfie now if you really want,” I said, in spite of all the glares I was getting from my fellow first-class passengers. They didn’t like having their sacred space invaded by teenagers from coach.

All of them except Dark Knight, my seatmate. He, I noted, was grinning.

Hot Books
» House of Earth and Blood (Crescent City #1)
» A Kingdom of Flesh and Fire
» From Blood and Ash (Blood And Ash #1)
» A Million Kisses in Your Lifetime
» Deviant King (Royal Elite #1)
» Den of Vipers
» House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City #2)
» The Queen of Nothing (The Folk of the Air #
» Sweet Temptation
» The Sweetest Oblivion (Made #1)
» Chasing Cassandra (The Ravenels #6)
» Wreck & Ruin
» Steel Princess (Royal Elite #2)
» Twisted Hate (Twisted #3)
» The Play (Briar U Book 3)