Romancing Blake: A Sweet Romantic Comedy by Jen Atkinson

Author:Jen Atkinson [Atkinson, Jen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: JA Books
Published: 2022-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

Royce

After twenty minutes of small talk, eating, and no Blake returning, I wiped my mouth with my napkin and smiled at Blake’s father and sister. “Uh, I’m going to find that second bathroom you mentioned.”

“Sure,” Will Minola said, his eyes slipping to his younger daughter. I could see it in his face, he wished Blake would come back. He just wanted an evening with his daughters.

I stood from the table and slipped into the living room with zero intentions of using the bathroom.

“Hey!” a whisper stopped me in my tracks. I turned to find Juliana in the room, slouching as if sneaking around. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I was—”

“You’re here. On a date. With my sister. How many others have there been?”

“Well,” I scrunched my brows, “none. She keeps turning me down.”

“You were supposed to boost her spirits with this job, that’s it.”

“And… I’m doing that. Err—at least I’m trying. I like Blake, okay?” It wasn’t a lie. Somehow, someway, I had learned to like Blake Minola in the last three weeks. My left eye twitched—it wasn’t the whole truth either.

Juliana stood taller. "Hmm… Okay." She tilted her head. "Just FYI, you hurt her and I come at you with a pitch ax."

I cleared my throat. "A pitch ax, really?"

She smiled at me. “Really.” She pointed to the stairs entrance in the hallway. “She’s gone to her childhood bedroom.”

“Right.” I mimicked her point to the stairs.

“Go on. Get her back down here. It’s my father’s birthday!”

“Right,” I said again, then started toward the stairs.

A sitting room opened at the top of the stairs, with a door to the west and a door to the north. One had a sign on the front in curvy letters that read: Juliana. The other had a sheet of white copy paper, with black block letters saying: KEEP OUT.

I smirked. I wouldn’t have needed Juliana’s name to be attached to a door to figure out which one belonged to Blake.

I tapped on the door, but didn’t want to give her the opportunity to send me away—so I walked inside right after announcing myself with the tap.

Blake lay on her bed, bigger than a twin, but not quite a queen. A black and white stuffed animal lay on her stomach, her arms wrapped around it. She stared at her ceiling, flicking her gaze to me for only a brief second.

"We don't have to write the story if you don't want to."

She answered with zero disdain in her tone, surprising me, “I want to.”

"Oh, okay." My brows rose and I walked farther into the room. "I didn't know. You seemed unsure." I looked about Blake's large childhood bedroom. Band posters lined one wall, a desk and a dresser with trinkets atop it sat on the adjacent wall. A few photos without frames lined the mirror above her dresser. The photos showed Blake and Juliana, arm in arm, at various ages. Then, both girls next to their dad. Also, a few snapshots of teenage girls, who must have been high school friends, all standing next to a brace-faced Blake.

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