Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 64527 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64527 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 323(@200wpm)___ 258(@250wpm)___ 215(@300wpm)
It felt strange to walk out into the living room, since my instinct was to go over to him and put my hands on his shoulders, run my fingers through his hair… but we weren’t together. That was what I had to keep reminding myself as I walked out into the living room where he wasn’t sitting at his console.
I looked around for a second before spotting him at the island, casually sipping at a glass of water as he played with a small card of some kind.
“I wanted to talk to you about something,” I said, walking over to the cupboard and grabbing a glass to pour myself some water too. After that walk and the other exertions, I was definitely feeling parched.
“What a coincidence because I wanted to ask you something.”
The cold tone of his voice brought me up short for a second, but I wasn’t about to let him see how bothered I was by it. I just filled the glass and turned back around, looking at him steadily as I sipped from it. “Yeah? What’s that?”
He looked down at the card he’d been playing with, seeming to study it, before looking back up at me and saying, “Who’s Macy Wallace?”
My hands suddenly got cold, and the feeling seemed to rush from my fingertips as I held the glass. “What—how—”
He set the card down on the counter so I could look at it. It was my LA driver’s license, and my stomach started to plummet. I chanced a look up at his face, and I couldn’t decide whether to be comforted or terrified that he looked so calm.
“Where did you find that?” I said, unable to hide the shaking in my voice and hating how vulnerable it made me sound.
“I keep some spare charge cables in the guest room, so I went in there while you were in the shower to get one. I saw this on the desk, and I wouldn’t have looked at it twice, except that ‘Wallace’ is a pretty different name from ‘Keene.’” He set his glass down on the island and walked around the island slowly. His frame soon came into my space, the full breadth of him a little overwhelming to me.
“Keene was my grandmother’s maiden name, and since I’m named after her anyway, I figured I could borrow the name when I left home.” I exhaled, shutting my eyes against the tears that worked to get out. “I needed to create some kind of new identity for when I left. Alex didn’t know that name, but at least it still felt like something that was mine.”
He was silent, and I couldn’t help edging my finger out so that it was near the warmth of his hand.
“My real name is Macy Evelyn Wallace. I took my mom’s maiden name when we left my dad. And I’m telling you all of this so that you know that I didn’t actually mean to keep anything from you. I just—you were still an unknown quantity for a while, and you gave me a place to stay, and I had no idea what your motivation was for your generosity at first. I know I should’ve—”
“Macy.” I looked up at him, and I was surprised to see that his face was colored with an intense compassion. “You’re not the first person to take a new name when you left your past behind, and you won’t be the last.”
I sighed, the breath rippling out of me.
Without another word, he stepped forward and wrapped his arms around me, rocking me back and forth. “It’s okay, Macy. It’s okay.”
“I hate this. I hate everything right now. I hate not feeling like myself. I hate not doing my job, I hate not using my name, I hate being afraid all the time. I hate this.”
“I don’t blame you,” he said, resting his cheek against my hair as he held me. “Those are a lot of things that are worth hating.”
“I don’t hate you,” I said, pulling away from him to look up at him, into his beautiful green eyes that lit up with amusement.
“I guess that’s something,” he said. “I don’t hate you either.”
“Good,” I said, but the tears kept flowing. He reached down and took my hand, pulling me over to the couch and sitting down. As I took my seat on top of him, I noticed that his hands were still filthy from our escapade out in the woods, and it brought the memory sharply back to me, but I was too tired from the revelations to do anything more than curl into his arms.
As much as my heart might’ve been in danger, in that moment, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt so safe. Any thought I’d had before of needing to distance myself from Dillon drifted out of my head as the exhaustion set in, and the last thought I had before I drifted off was of the comforting way that Dillon’s heartbeat in time with mine.