Hot for the Ranger (Hot for Heroes #8) - Ember Flint Page 0,1

and managed to drag me here under false pretenses, and maybe they are right, about me being too naive, after all, I’m the one who really believed this mini-break was an olive branch and even if Veronica has proven many times she can’t be trusted, I thought I would give our friendship one final shot and went along with her plan. Big effing mistake.

She spent four days talking my ear off at any given turn about this little beautiful oceanside town not twenty minutes away from UNF by car, Plumeria. I’d never heard of the place, but I have to admit it’s truly lovely.

She showed me all these gorgeous pictures of the little quaint B&B we ended up booking a room with twin beds in, and of the breathtaking beach with the white, unpolluted sand and the crystalline azure waters, and in the end, even if I have two exams to prepare for, and tons of research to do for a paper, I let her talk me into taking this weekend-long mini-vacay.

When I mentioned studying, she was like: ‘you need to loosen up, sweetie, you need a break and so do I, don’t be such a stuck-up boring nerd, come on!’.

She said we would relax, catch some sun and generally have no-boys-allowed fun times, she said she was concerned about how many migraines I’ve been getting —which really is true, I’ve been getting a lot of them, and it totally made me feel like she really cared— and then she told me how much she needed the downtime to recuperate after her latest breakup.

She said it had been particularly hard on her, that she really felt like she was falling for the guy and then he cut her loose.

I really felt bad for her and in the end, I thought I could more than afford less than three days away from textbooks and homework to help cheer her up and get some rest myself so I said yes, even made the mini-break my treat when she told me she was broke –yet again– and she needed to borrow some money to cover her part of the expenses.

We got here last night and we just hung out by the beach. Veronica kept looking around like she was waiting for someone and tapping away at her phone, but I didn’t think anything of it, she’s practically glued to the thing and as for the way she glanced around, I figured she really liked the scenery, the sunset was a thing of beauty and she had to immortalize it into close to ninety selfies.

Now early this afternoon, after more of her jumpy behavior and general even nastier than usual bitchiness, I got the big reveal.

Turns out she’s here to get together with a guy she met online and dragged me along in case he ends up being some kind of creep.

And now she’s insisting I doll myself up to go play third wheel to her and this guy, whoever he is.

I mean, I will go: I could never forgive myself if the guy was some psycho and hurt her –not that I could do much to stop it, I’m only 5’2’’ tall and while I do have some mass to my tininess it’s definitely not muscle, only very soft, ample curves- I don’t see why I have to do it while wearing something this revealing and totally slutty to the outing.

I look again at the diminutive black, strapless number she threw over one of the little twin beds —my twin bed— and I frown.

There’s no freaking way in heaven or hell my boobs will fit into this thing and if they by some miracle do, it would be because my ass is showing. Thank you, but no thank you.

I turn to stare at my roommate –looking impeccable as usual in the vertiginous heels, little dark green tube-top and black denim mini-skirt that’s one inch from showing her crotch– and glare at her.

“Veronica, if you expect me to wear that, you’re crazier than I thought.”

She rolls her green eyes at me and huffs, tossing her long black hair back. “First of all, it’s Nica or Vero, not Veronica, how many times must I remind you?! Veronica is so passé… and second of all, why do you have to be such a party-pooper is beyond me, sweetie, can’t you try to be fun for once in your life?”

I smirk at the ‘Vero/Nica’ thing.

It’s one of her latest ridiculous ideas: she read some influencer’s blogpost going