Beautiful Player Read Online Free PDF Page A
Author: Christina Lauren
you shagged?”
“No, that’s the other sister, Liv.” I sat across from the Brit and ignored both the amused grin on his face as well as the uncomfortable twist in my stomach. “And I didn’t shag her. We just hooked up a little. The youngest sister is Ziggy. She was only a kid that first time I went home with Jensen for Christmas.”
“I still can’t believe he took you home for Christmas and you made out with his sister in the backyard. I’d kick your ass.” He reconsidered, scratching his chin. “Ah fuck that. I wouldn’t have given a shit.”
I looked at Max, felt a small grin pull at my mouth. “Liv wasn’t there when I came back a few years later for the summer. I behaved myself the second time around.”
All around us, glasses clinked and conversation carried on in a quiet murmur. Tuesday lunch at Le Bernardin hadbecome a routine for our group in the past six months. Max and I were usually the last ones to the table, but apparently the others had been held up in a meeting.
“I suspect you want an award for that,” Max said, studying his menu before closing it with a snap. Truthfully, I’m not sure why he even bothered to open it in the first place. He always got the caviar for his first course, and the monkfish for the main course. I’d recently surmised that Max kept all of his spontaneity for his life with Sara; with food and work, he was a quiet creature of habit.
“You just forget what you were like before Sara,” I said. “Stop acting like you lived in a monastery.”
He acknowledged this with a wink and his big, easy smile. “So tell me about this little sis.”
“She’s the youngest of the five Bergstrom kids, and in grad school here at Columbia. Ziggy’s always been this ridiculous brain. Finished undergrad in three years, and now works in the Liemacki lab? The one who does the vaccine work?”
Max shook his head and shrugged as if to say, The fuck are you talking about?
I continued, “It’s a very high-profile operation over at the med school. Anyway, last weekend in Vegas when you were off chasing your pussy to the blackjack tables, Jensen texted to let me know he was coming to visit her. I guess he gave her a Come-to-Jesus about not living among the test tubes and beakers for the rest of her life.”
The waiter came by to fill our water glasses, and we explained that we were waiting on a few more people to join the table.
Max looked back to me. “So you have plans to see her again, yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m sure we’ll go out and do something this weekend. I think we’ll run together again.”
I didn’t miss the way his eyes widened. “Letting someone in your private little running headspace? That seems like it would be more intimate than sex to you, William.”
I waved him off. “Whatever.”
“So it was fun then? Catching up with the little sis and all?”
It had been fun. It hadn’t been wild, or even anything all that special—we’d gone for a run, of all things. But I still felt a little shaken by how unexpected she had been. I’d gone in thinking there had to be a reason for her isolation, other than her long work hours. I’d expected she would be awkward, or hideous, or the poster child for inappropriate social behavior.
But she’d been none of those things, and she definitely didn’t seem anything like someone’s “little sister.” She was naïve and a bit unfiltered at times, but really she was simply hardworking and had found herself trapped in a set of habits she didn’t enjoy anymore. I could relate.
I’d first met the Bergstroms over Christmas, my sophomore year in college. I hadn’t been able to afford to flyhome that year, and Jensen’s mother had such a fit at the idea of me staying alone in the dorms that she drove down from Boston two days before Christmas to pick me up and bring me home for the holidays. The family was as loving and loud as one would expect with five kids spaced almost exactly two years apart.
True to form
“No, that’s the other sister, Liv.” I sat across from the Brit and ignored both the amused grin on his face as well as the uncomfortable twist in my stomach. “And I didn’t shag her. We just hooked up a little. The youngest sister is Ziggy. She was only a kid that first time I went home with Jensen for Christmas.”
“I still can’t believe he took you home for Christmas and you made out with his sister in the backyard. I’d kick your ass.” He reconsidered, scratching his chin. “Ah fuck that. I wouldn’t have given a shit.”
I looked at Max, felt a small grin pull at my mouth. “Liv wasn’t there when I came back a few years later for the summer. I behaved myself the second time around.”
All around us, glasses clinked and conversation carried on in a quiet murmur. Tuesday lunch at Le Bernardin hadbecome a routine for our group in the past six months. Max and I were usually the last ones to the table, but apparently the others had been held up in a meeting.
“I suspect you want an award for that,” Max said, studying his menu before closing it with a snap. Truthfully, I’m not sure why he even bothered to open it in the first place. He always got the caviar for his first course, and the monkfish for the main course. I’d recently surmised that Max kept all of his spontaneity for his life with Sara; with food and work, he was a quiet creature of habit.
“You just forget what you were like before Sara,” I said. “Stop acting like you lived in a monastery.”
He acknowledged this with a wink and his big, easy smile. “So tell me about this little sis.”
“She’s the youngest of the five Bergstrom kids, and in grad school here at Columbia. Ziggy’s always been this ridiculous brain. Finished undergrad in three years, and now works in the Liemacki lab? The one who does the vaccine work?”
Max shook his head and shrugged as if to say, The fuck are you talking about?
I continued, “It’s a very high-profile operation over at the med school. Anyway, last weekend in Vegas when you were off chasing your pussy to the blackjack tables, Jensen texted to let me know he was coming to visit her. I guess he gave her a Come-to-Jesus about not living among the test tubes and beakers for the rest of her life.”
The waiter came by to fill our water glasses, and we explained that we were waiting on a few more people to join the table.
Max looked back to me. “So you have plans to see her again, yeah?”
“Yeah. I’m sure we’ll go out and do something this weekend. I think we’ll run together again.”
I didn’t miss the way his eyes widened. “Letting someone in your private little running headspace? That seems like it would be more intimate than sex to you, William.”
I waved him off. “Whatever.”
“So it was fun then? Catching up with the little sis and all?”
It had been fun. It hadn’t been wild, or even anything all that special—we’d gone for a run, of all things. But I still felt a little shaken by how unexpected she had been. I’d gone in thinking there had to be a reason for her isolation, other than her long work hours. I’d expected she would be awkward, or hideous, or the poster child for inappropriate social behavior.
But she’d been none of those things, and she definitely didn’t seem anything like someone’s “little sister.” She was naïve and a bit unfiltered at times, but really she was simply hardworking and had found herself trapped in a set of habits she didn’t enjoy anymore. I could relate.
I’d first met the Bergstroms over Christmas, my sophomore year in college. I hadn’t been able to afford to flyhome that year, and Jensen’s mother had such a fit at the idea of me staying alone in the dorms that she drove down from Boston two days before Christmas to pick me up and bring me home for the holidays. The family was as loving and loud as one would expect with five kids spaced almost exactly two years apart.
True to form