I excuse myself to the bathroom and splash cold water on my
face. I come out, my hands still not fully dry thanks to the crappy air-driers,
and Lee is leaning on the wall outside.
“You!” I sputter. “You really are a stalker.”
“Did you even try to hold his hand, yet?” Lee yawns, hazel
eyes tearing up.
“Were you the one throwing candy at Brendan?”
“Popcorn,” He
corrects. “Answer my question, princess.”
“No! I haven’t touched him. And don’t call me princess, it’s
way too Han Solo for my tastes.”
“Everybody loves Han Solo,” Lee argues. “He’s a delightful
rogue. Like me.”
“You’re a popcorn-throwing girl-stalking four-year-old,” I
correct.
“You should touch him. Guys like that. Knee touching, hand
touching, something to let him know you’re interested. Do you even like him?”
“I –” I stop myself. Am I really interested in Brendan? So
far this entire ‘date’ has been me being harassed by Lee, and I sort of…like
it. But I’ll never voice that out loud, lest I inflate Lee’s already-enormous
ego more.
“I think I like him,” I say. “I feel like we could be
compatible. Or whatever people call it these days.”
And suddenly, Lee’s gaze snaps from light and playful to
dark and deadly, burning like nothing I’ve felt before.
“What?” I cross my arms and try to look tough.
“Kiss him,” Lee responds simply. “When the movie’s over,
kiss your Brando, and come back here and kiss me. It’s the quickest way to tell
if you’re really into someone. If you do it, and you like him better, I’ll
leave you alone for good.”
“You said that last time.”
“I mean it, this time. No more popcorn-throwing at would-be
boyfriends. No more tailing you. I won’t even spare a glance at you in the
halls at school. I’ll leave you alone and let you experience love with the guy
of your choice.”
“And if I,” I swallow, hard. So hard I’m afraid he heard it.
“Somehow, beyond all logic, like you better?”
Lee smirks, infuriating and devastating all at once. “Then
you and I, princess, have a lot to catch up on.”
I roll my eyes. “Keep dreaming. For the last time – I’ll
never fall for your plan.”
“Which one? The plan where we rent a fancy hotel room for a
week and completely destroy it?”
“The plan where you wed me, get the money, and run to Brazil
to bathe in champagne and bikini models.”
“Tempting as that is,” He sucks in a breath. “I’d rather
just have you. And the money would be nice. But you would be better.”
“Why? Why am I so great to you?” My voice rises. An old man
walking by shoots us a look but I don’t care.
“You’re beautiful. Not party girl cute or cheerleader
slutty, but a soft, quiet sort of beautiful. Elegant.” Lee counts off on his
fingers. “You’re sweet, even to people you don’t know. You’re smart as a whip –
the professors on campus won’t shut up about you.”
For once, I don’t have an insult to hurl at him on the tip
of my tongue. I’m speechless. Lee flashes a smile and counts on another finger.
“And you saved me. You saved my life, Rose. And even if you
don’t remember that, I do. You saved my life. So I want to make yours better –
no, the best. I want you to have the best food and the best laughs and the best
sex. I want you to have the best of everything.”
A distant boom of a movie sound effect pierces through the
walls, breaks the tension between us. Lee’s smile gets bigger, and he pushes
the small of my back with his hand lightly, steering me toward the theater.
“Go on. Finish the movie and kiss your Brando. I’ll be
waiting here.”
“I-I don’t know how to kiss.”
He laughs, low, in my ear. “Yes you do. We’ve done it two
times already. You’re delightful at it.”
Arranged by Sara Wolf starts off with us meeting Rose Jensen,
a college student at UCLA on scholarship. She spends all the extra time she has
outside of class and working at the bakery studying in order to keep her
straight-A average so she doesn’t lose her scholarship.
“I have a life here. I have a college degree to think about.
Do you know how hard I worked to get into UCLA?”
It becomes very apparent rather quickly that Rose is
incredibly selfless person, almost to a fault. She won’t accept help from her
family for school because she believes they need it more than she does. She
would also give up all of her dreams and ambitions she has ever had to go back
home and help save her family’s business.
“I have to help them. If I leave them in trouble like this,
I’ll never forgive myself. I’m the only one who can help.”
Then we meet Lee Montenegro, a transfer student who has
already made himself known as a playboy, when Rose stumbles into him coming out
of another girl’s dorm room with only a Care Bears t-shirt in his hands to
cover himself with. Rose (as well as myself) was not impressed with Lee right
away, but it turns out Lee is the key to her financial freedom.
“You look a lot different without the Care Bears clutched to
your crotch.”
When Rose’s grandfather dies he leaves her enough money to
help her family’s business as well as pay for school, but she has to marry Lee
in order to get the inheritance he has left her.
“Marriage for money? How old fashioned and ridiculous is
this? You can’t expect me to do this. There’s no way I’m doing this.”
Sara Wolf takes us on the journey of Rose’s self-discovery
in trying decide how to make the right decisions. She has never made the time
for boys partly because she doesn’t honestly think much of herself or her physical
appearance. She has to discover how to overcome over those self-esteem issues
as she falls in love for the first time, as well as grieve for her grandfather
and the parts of her childhood he represents.
“I’m not saying anything. I won’t bind you to me with old
memories and should-have-beens.”
I found this Arranged to be extremely relatable, as I
imagine most women who read it would. Reading this book made me think back to
when I was nineteen and twenty years old, when I too lost my grandfather that I
was very close to. I fought self-esteem issues and was trying to figure out
where I wanted to go in life, as well as fell in love with my husband during
that time, just like Rose.
“Boy don’t like me. They cheat off my tests or borrow my
notes from class, but they don’t really like me. I’m only good at studying, and
carrying around stupid dreams like bakeries. I’m no fun.”
Coming into young adulthood is a tough time for everybody,
and I think Sara Wolf really captured that aspect of the story for Rose very well.
Trying to figure out which direction you want to steer your life towards and
making those important decisions that will impact your future is stressful and
can be traumatic. I found myself catching my breath and wanting to hold Rose’s
hand while she faced all the roadblocks that came her way.
Fair warning; be prepared that the ending might just rip
your heart out! No worries however as Arranged is the debut novel by Sara Wolf,
and is the first in what is sure to be a standout series! More of Rose and Lee
to come!
Find Sara Wolf:
Like Sara Wolf on Facebook
Follow Sara Wolf on Twitter @Sara_Wolf1
Website: http://sarawolfbooks.blogspot.com/
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