Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
He looked down, closed his eyes, took a deep breath. Bear seemed to sense Law needed him. The dog gave me a dirty look before putting his head on Law’s lap, under his arm. Lawson leaned back and petted him.
“I know I fucked up. I know things will never go back to the way they were. I’ve accepted that. I also know it’s my fault, but I…I miss you,” I admitted. “I miss that feeling of rightness that flooded my veins when I was with you, that feeling of being enough. I thought maybe being here would make me feel closer to that. It was a stupid idea, but I’m here now.”
Law didn’t look at me, didn’t reply, simply sat there and petted his dog, his blond curls almost like a curtain between us.
“I came looking for you, ya know,” I said softly, and his gaze snapped to mine. “I don’t know what I planned to do when I saw you. I probably would have fucked it all up and hurt us both more. But I missed you. You were still in Charlottesville.” I realized I knew nothing about him after that. Had he stayed there? Come straight back to Havenwood? Gone somewhere else? Was he working for Grant’s, or had he followed his dreams?
“Anyway, you were with a group of friends at the coffeehouse…Sara was there. You were all drinking and talking. You were smiling, and even from a distance, I could tell you were talking shit to one of the guys there. Not in a negative way, but how you do when you’re completely comfortable with yourself and other people.” In a way I never was. “You dropped your head back and laughed.” I could still see the long column of his throat, the way it had worked. “I was outside, probably looking like a stalker. I couldn’t hear you, but I knew it was a loud laugh. A fun, carefree one. And it hit me then, that I hadn’t seen you do that in a long time. You used to laugh with me that way. Hell, you’d make me do the same, but you hadn’t been…you’d been sad, and I knew I was the reason for it. Keeping our secret was the reason for it. Then Sara grabbed your face and turned so you faced her. You guys kissed in a way I didn’t know if I would ever be able to do in a room full of people, even if I had been out. When you pulled away, you were all laughing again. You deserved that.” I couldn’t give him that. Even if I’d been honest about who I was, I wasn’t like Law, or Sara, or his friends. I was quiet and awkward and uncomfortable.
“I was happy with you—other than the secret part. I know you think I wanted you to be someone you weren’t, but I never did. I fell for you, Rem, but I can’t do that again. I can’t go back to that place. It hurt me too much the first time, and I don’t trust you. I hate to say that, but I don’t trust you not to pull away again, not to push me away or choose something else over me.”
His words were like a punch to the gut, teeth tearing at my heart, decimating it. He hadn’t said anything I hadn’t expected, anything I didn’t deserve, but it hurt all the same.
“I’m not here for that. I’m here to…find my love of music again. To find who I am outside of music. To just…be. I’ve never been able to do that. I want to work on that house. I want to work with my hands. I want to be away from the spotlight and expectations.” And my siblings always demanding more, and worry for my mom and her expectations of me. “And I’d like to see if maybe we can be friends. I understand if you don’t want to, but I’d like to try. We never had only friendship.” Hell, I’d somehow been in love with him from the first night.
“What about Brittany?” he asked, surprising me.
“She’s my best friend.” My only real friend outside of him. We’d met at a gala. I’d been uncomfortable as fuck. She’d seen it and started talking to me. Somehow, we worked. “That’s all she’s ever been. She’s played the part for me over the years, especially when rumors would get started.” When people spoke online about never seeing me with a woman or when there would be rumors about me on hookup apps. I hadn’t hooked up often, but hell, sometimes I just needed someone there, a body, release, to feel close to someone, even if it was a lie.
“I was shocked…the first time I read about the two of you online. A model didn’t seem your type, which is likely judgy of me.”