Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 41373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 207(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 138(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 207(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 138(@300wpm)
I puffed out a laugh even as another tear ran down my cheek. “I am not exactly cool, but I think that’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
He squeezed my hand. “You actually want this? More of this?”
I bit my lower lip.
Swing for the fucking fences.
“Shane, I want to be your boyfriend,” I said. “Your real one. If you’d have me, I’d be happier than I’ve been in a long, long while.”
I saw a smile spread over his face like I hadn’t seen before. “Oh my God. I am the luckiest motherfucker in Tennessee. The luckiest on the planet, I think. What the hell? You want me?”
“Hey, why is that so hard to believe?” I asked. “You’re hot as fuck, sweet and kind, and you just… you make me feel like I’m at home, or something. Shit. Sorry if that sounds cheesy.”
“Oh, fuck off,” he said, standing up and coming to pull me off of my chair.
I stood up and his arms were wrapped around me a moment later, pulling me as tight as he could and crushing his lips to mine.
As he kissed me, I felt the rest of the night melt away. The rest of the last few months melted away, actually.
Sure, a guy’s kiss couldn’t fix my entire life.
But goddamn, it could fix a whole lot.
“I still apologize for my family being over-the-top,” he said in between kisses, nuzzling up against my neck. “God, I can’t believe the shit my mom was saying.”
“I loved it,” I told him. I breathed in the clean scent of his hair, every cell in my body feeling magnetized to him.
He backed up, looking at me with his arms still wrapped around me.
“I can’t believe this is real.”
“Neither can I,” I told him. “It’s magic.”
He melted into my arms, and here at the edge of the yard, I just held him close.
Everything I wanted was right here, I realized.
Maybe I’d lost it all back in the city, but I’d found something real in the middle of Bestens, Tennessee. A guy-next-door in a quirky little saloon who turned out to be the best person I’d ever met.
“So when we walk back in there, we won’t be faking it anymore,” Shane said.
“I’m not sure I was ever faking it, to be honest.”
He leaned in to kiss me. “You definitely weren’t faking it when I made you come.”
“Hell no, I wasn’t.”
“And I’m going to want to do that a lot, just to warn you,” he told me.
“Threatening me with a good time.”
“Damn right.”
I ran my hand across his hair. “Let’s head back in before you freeze?”
“As a couple,” he said.
“I want to be the best fucking boyfriend you’ve ever had,” I told him, looking him dead in the eye and meaning every word of it.
His blue eyes sparkled and he gave me that killer smile.
“The best Christmas gift I’ve ever gotten.”
13
SHANE
ONE MONTH LATER
“So you’re telling me that cotton candy and Moon Pies were both invented in Tennessee?” Rowen asked.
We were talking to a man in a cowboy hat who had showed up here at the Hard Spot Saloon a little over an hour ago.
“And Mountain Dew, too,” the cowboy said, holding up his beer bottle.
“So Tennessee just makes sweet things, I guess,” Rowen said, reaching over toward me on the seat next to his. He rubbed my leg, giving it a little sweet.
The man in the cowboy hat gave us a look. For a moment I was worried he was going to give us shit for being gay, but soon a dimpled smile appeared on his face.
“Hell, I need some of what you two have,” he said, shaking his head as he finished his beer. “I’m going to go chat up that guy down on the other side of the bar. Do you guys know him?”
We glanced over to see a man with slightly greying hair on the opposite end. He was sitting alone, nursing a beer of his own.
“I haven’t seen him,” I said, “but he looks like he’d enjoy some cowboy company, for sure.”
“Going to shoot my shot,” the guy said. He winked at us. “Have a good one, boys. I know you will.”
Rowen leaned in and kissed me once we were alone.
It was Thursday night at the saloon, and while it wasn’t as busy as it got on the weekends, the place was fairly full. We’d been here ever since I got off work down at the inn, and Rowen had been telling me good news before the cowboy had come over to chat with us.
“So the theater company wants to work with you full-time?” I asked.
Rowen nodded. “They don’t have much money, but luckily that’s the one thing I can do without,” he said. “I’m going to try my best to grow the troupe, bring it statewide, maybe even make some regular trips to Knoxville and Nashville.”