Total pages in book: 48
Estimated words: 46257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 231(@200wpm)___ 185(@250wpm)___ 154(@300wpm)
Ash smiles, and seeing how much it’s eating at me, he tells me he’ll call them.
I make an involuntary sound, and my brain explodes at the idea.
“And how is that gonna help?” I say, chewing my lip and starting to pace up and down.
All the while knowing that the only way ahead through all this is to just tell everyone the truth.
“I’ll call them. Tell them you’re okay, then maybe we can go around there. Let them see for themselves that you’re okay,” he murmurs.
His own frustration bubbling under the surface, but only because he knows as much as I do it’s the only sane and logical thing to do.
“They have to know, Bridget. I won’t shy away from how I feel about you, not for anyone. And we can’t hide here forever,” he adds. “Not with them thinking you’re a missing person.”
“Alright.” I sigh, but I still can’t feel any courage in me to call them myself.
After he makes us some lunch which is my breakfast too, I shower after giving him my phone, so he can get Mom and Dad’s numbers.
There’s the home phone too, which he says he’ll try first after I’ve showered and gotten dressed.
I know it’s chickening out, but Ash seems so much more…mature about stuff than I feel right now.
If I spoke to my parents now, I’d only make an awkward situation worse.
“Sorry for saying that, Ash.” I’m quick to apologize. “It just felt like you were….”
But he only smiles, giving me the same look he did that gave me the confidence to jump from that ledge in the first place.
“I know,” he murmurs. “But I meant every word. And if you’re gonna be back home in time for supper, our home, then we’d better get organized,” he says with determination.
He says it with way more enthusiasm for talking to my parents than I have.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Ash
Are her parents glad to see her safe and well once I drive her to their place?
Of course, they are.
They’re not bad parents or bad people. Just a little…overprotective, which I fully understand. And no, they didn’t jump the gun. Apparently, Bridget’s Mom really thought she had a fever. Thought she was home alone until Dad swung by and found her room and bed empty.
But having Bridget back safe and sound after I call up and say I’ll drop her over is a relief that’s short-lived.
For all of us.
“I knew there was something strange about you,” her Mom hisses at me after she’s opened their front door and made a sour face.
Spotting my huge hand in her daughter’s before either of us say anything.
Her Dad’s home, too, and both of them shift from nervous wrecks worried about their daughter to almost childish grown-ups once it dawns on them that I’m deadly serious about Bridget moving in with me.
Seeing Bridget get tongue-tied as she tries to explain, I take over. Spelling it out in no uncertain terms that Bridget and I are a couple now.
“We’re in love,” I tell them.
And I’ll tell anyone, anytime, the same thing if they ask because it’s true.
“After one whole day?” her Dad gapes, shaking his head and actually stamping his feet.
“I won’t have it. I won’t let you take our only daughter,” he shouts, but it’s Bridget’s Mom who surprises us all.
She grips her husband by the arm and tells him to sit down.
“Your heart…,” she reminds him, and I notice Bridget give them both a confused look.
“I’m alright,” her Dad sighs, apologizing to his wife. But not to Bridget or to me.
His mind’s made up, it seems. But it’s too late for any of that. Bridget and I have already made up more than our minds.
Our hearts, bodies, and souls have joined, and we make a pretty formidable team if I say so myself.
“Bridget’s never even had a boyfriend,” her Mom explains to me in a patronizing tone.
“She’s shy. Awkward. I can tell you, mister, that three days with our girl, and you’ll be bringing her straight back. Begging us to take her off your hands,” she chuckles dryly.
Wow. Bridget wasn’t kidding. Her parents are weird. Have they actually spent any time with her? Asked her what she wants out of life?
I doubt it.
“Plus, what kind of life is it for her?” her dad pipes up again, as if he has a point.
“I mean, how can you support her on a firefighter’s salary? I don’t think they pay you in gold bars,” he quips, amused by his own joke.
“Dad,” Bridget cuts in. “Are you even listening? I have a job, and Ash is…,” but she loses steam fast, so I figure I may as well tell Bridget and her parents just how ‘supportive’ a partner I’m gonna be.
“You’re a switched-on guy. An up to the minute, modern man?” I ask her dad, forcing a friendly look.