Total pages in book: 134
Estimated words: 134746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 539(@250wpm)___ 449(@300wpm)
I may have indulged in a little too much wine. It was sweet and fizzy and it tasted good, and it helped keep my brain from getting stuck to certain questions.
Like whether or not August still has feelings for his dead wife.
The way he talked about Charisma Marshall . . . he must, right?
Even if he didn’t love her at the end, you see this with widowers.
The memory of their dead spouse becomes larger than life. Someone they can idolize and love as the deceased shapes every ideal in the imagination, no matter what the real person was like.
Worse, he just blames himself for Charisma’s flaws.
Like he’s the one who made her what she was, the person who would make the choices she did.
I don’t know how to convince him otherwise.
I linger on that as I watch the city at night, twirling my fork through the remains of something called a Lunar Orbiter. It’s a confection of dark chocolate ganache and vanilla meringue with macarons.
Well, the second one to be exact. I already finished mine.
This is the rest of August’s. After he took one bite, he wrinkled his nose in the most adorably disgusted way and pushed it across the table for me.
But I don’t have enough room in my belly to inhale a second whole plate, and the sparkling wine is settling in a little too deep. I’m thinking too hard as I watch the city rotate like we’re up high in a lunar orbiter of our own, drifting gently among the stars and looking down at how peaceful the world is when you can’t see all the small petty things up close.
. . . I think I’m trying to convince myself that August is still in love with his dead wife.
I need him to be.
Because as long as I tell myself he’s in love with her, I can remind myself that he’s completely off limits.
He’s soft in the intimate shadows of the lounge, silently staring out the window with his legs crossed and a stem glass in one hand. He’s somewhere else, and I wonder what stars he’s seeing and wishing on.
Can he still wish on stars at all?
The shadows play over his face until I can pick out every small detail, from the way they kiss the space under his stark cheekbones to the way said cheekbones cut the light into a thin, gleaming sliver.
The way the sun has darkened his skin hints that he’s not wholly a creature of the night or endlessly locked inside beneath corporate white lights.
That one unruly lock of hair.
His little bit of rebellion, curving over his decisive, worry-ridged forehead to tease at his right eyebrow.
What would happen in this strange air between us if I reached across the table, tucked that wild lock of hair back, and caressed his cheek?
What would he do if I kissed him again?
Wouldn’t it be all right?
In public, we’re meant to be intimate, to make people believe we have eyes for no one and nothing but each other.
Would he cradle my hand against his cheek, kiss my palm, let me feel the heat of his lips and the scratch of his beard?
My chest hurts.
This so isn’t like me.
I always try to smile. I always look for the bright side of things.
I’m looking now, but it’s so hard.
Maybe when this is over, I’ll smile, because I’m realizing now that I’ve never actually been in love before.
In lust, sure.
But this feeling, this desperate desire for this one person, it’s new.
It’s definitely crazy.
Then again, this whole thing has been insane from the start.
“What are you smiling at this time?” August whispers, almost affectionately.
I blink, recoiling a little with a tiny thump of my heart.
He’s very good at watching me without seeming to, and it hits me.
The entire time I’ve been looking at him, he’s been looking at me.
I hadn’t even realized I was smiling. That’s how entranced I am.
But I look for a quick excuse and flick my gaze to his hair again. “I’m just wondering how much hair wax you used to try to get your hair to lie down, and it still doesn’t listen.”
It’s not a lie.
I was thinking about that bit of hair.
August groans. There’s a burr to his voice, raw and gritty, like the bubbles in the sparkling wine have gently sanded his voice down to give it the texture of crushed velvet.
He reaches up to flick the little arc of black hair aside with one blunt finger, only it sways right back to the same spot on his brow.
“It’s been like this since I was a child,” he grumbles. “I could use an entire tin of pomade, and in minutes it would pop right back out. It’s terrible for my professional image. I look like Tom Sawyer.”
I snicker. “It’s cute. But if you really hate it that much, you could clip it. I have some little colored barrettes that would look adorable on you.”