Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 85(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16911 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 85(@200wpm)___ 68(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
But the times I had seen her, albeit from a distance, I’d been too much of a chickenshit to go tell her, to ask her out, admit I needed her to be mine.
But that needed to change. I was lonely and I wanted her. Only her.
And it was time I actually started acting like it.
Chapter Two
Landry
It should’ve been illegal, immoral, or maybe just downright creepy that for five straight years now, I’d been obsessing over one man, wishing like hell he was mine. Wishing I was strong enough to actually just go up to him and tell him what I wanted.
Big.
Although that wasn’t his real name, it fit him to perfection. Muscular and tall, strong and confident. He was everything I’d envisioned a man was, a real man. But maybe it was all of that prowess that made me feel intimidated? Maybe I was just too worried about rejection to actually go up and let him know what I wanted… and that was him.
Beckett Harden. Even his name was attractive.
I leaned back in my chair, looking at the invoices and paperwork scattered across my desk, trying to actually focus on work instead of imagining what Big was like in bed.
This week alone, I had four jobs. One was the church, and another was Mrs. Henderson’s house, who I knew was capable of cleaning her own home, but she was too posh for all that. The third was Mr. and Mrs. Franklin, an older couple who left when I was there to do their daily walk around the block, matching windbreaker suits and all. And the last was Rodney, who I had a feeling hired me every week because he liked sitting on the couch and watching me scrub his walls.
I didn’t even think it was sexual for him. I honestly thought he just legit liked watching someone pick up after him, even if he was paying them to do it.
But he could watch me all he wanted, as long as he didn’t try to get something else from me, and that meant anything remotely sexual. Besides, if he wanted to pay to watch some random chick sweat in her uniform as she washed the grime and cigarette smoke off the once white walls, I was cool with that.
I was about to get started on that paperwork for the week, but I found my focus trained outside the large picture window. I rented out a little office in the center of town, a tiny space that was basically just something where I could keep supplies, paperwork, and have an actual face for my company. And the truth was, I was here more than I was at my one-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of town.
I watched the townsfolk walk around, the cobblestone sidewalks a classy touch, the dream-like village almost like a world of its own. Although I’d never really lived the big-city life—I had lived in the suburbs. And even that had been too much for me.
Stone Creek was so different than what I was used to, with the intimacy of neighbors, everyone knowing everything and everyone else. There were no secrets. But I liked it. And when I visited Stone Creek on a whim all those years ago, just a little road trip I’d taken to the neighboring state, I realized I was living a dead-end job, had nothing and no one close by—what with my family states away—and that I wanted a change.
So, I emptied out my savings, broke my apartment lease, and started The Soapy Bucket Cleaning Company.
In hindsight, it was probably such a dangerous move, hoping like hell things didn’t crash and burn in a fiery inferno. But I told myself I only lived once. And what was the point if you weren’t living your best life and actually happy?
And so I decided to see if I could make this different way of life work. I wasn’t going to lie; it was hard as hell at first, starting a new business, getting the reputation where people trusted me. I’d been working out of my one-bedroom apartment for a year before I was making any kind of profit and finally took the plunge and leased this office. And by then, people knew, respected, and trusted me.
And who knew there were so many people in this small town who didn’t want to clean their own houses?
As my thoughts wandered, I realized another major part of me wanted to stay here, made me want to make this work in any possible way. It wasn’t just because of my job, but also because I had this hope that I would have a happily ever after, a fairytale romance. Surely if it happened to all those made-for-TV movies with a city girl who moved to a small town and fell in love instantly with the local lumberjack, that could happen to me, right?