EIGHTY-EIGHT.

“I'll have two scoops of chocolate mud with chopped nuts in a cup, please?” I ask the young boy serving me in the ice cream parlour.

He nods his head, looking me up and down, and I roll my eyes with irritation.

I know I appear too overdressed to be out eating ice cream in a deep crimson dress that clings to my body like another layer of skin.

Knee-high boots, that belong to Jaxs older sister, and a black trench coat.

Jax wouldn't take no for an answer and to get him off my back I had to get all dolled up and physically leave the house in an Uber.

We told my dad that I was meeting with Nicole, my friend who works at our local café.

Another lie we told him, as Nicole's gone to Australia for a few weeks to visit her brother and her newborn nephew in Melbourne.

“Would you like anything else with that?” The kid asks in a tone I can only assume to be his sultry one.

Whatever tone it is, it has the strength to pull me out of my daze.

I scrunch my nose up, throwing a twenty-dollar bil