Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
But if I peeled back the exterior?
The walls I’d built—the façade I’d lived in for the last seven years?
That was a wound that hadn’t come close to healing.
It was raw.
Throbbing.
A fucking hole that ached with confusion and tumult because I still couldn’t understand how Aster had done it.
Her spirit roiled. I felt it flow, whisper and moan on a ripple of grief.
Yearning struck me, so intense that I was inhaling every veiled question that lingered between us.
Aster stared out the window, bobbing in a turmoil that’d caught her unaware.
“I’m sorry, Aster, I didn’t mean to put you on the spot, especially tonight. It just—”
“Hurts,” she filled in, not looking my way.
“Yeah, it fucking hurts.”
The dreams, the plans, the promises we’d made.
But she was the one who’d had to exist on the other side, and I was the one who’d done the very thing she’d begged me not to do.
“It’s a pain that won’t ever go away, Logan.”
Grief rose high, threatening my windpipe, but I forced myself to push for more.
“You said you’d never allow it to happen…that you’d never put a child in the same position as you’d been put in. That you refused to have Jarek’s children because—”
She cut me off by whipping her attention my direction. “You asked me if I wanted it, Logan.” Her voice had gone haggard. Hopeless and hopeful. Fueled by her own misunderstandings. She touched her chest. “I’ve always wanted it. I just wanted it with you. I wanted to run away with you. Live with you. For you. For us. A family and a home and our child.”
“And I was too late.”
Through bleary eyes, she blinked. “Maybe time didn’t really exist for us.”
“No, baby, no. It did and it does. Time might have been cruel, but we’re real, and this time? It’s ours. Fuck thirty days, I’m taking thirty thousand.” Aster smiled a soggy smile. Emotion thick. Her faith finally coming to fruition.
I dove forward, capturing her mouth while this girl captured my soul.
Hell, it’d always been hers. It was time we were finally free to revel in it.
A pounding hammered at my driver’s side window.
Aster yelped and jerked away, and I whirled around to find the threat.
Gifts stacked to the sky, Tessa waved back manically with one hand as she tried to balance them.
Shit.
I drew in a fragmented breath and tried to reel in the violence that had been instant.
“Hello, hey, Merry Christmas. Get your asses out of that car because I’m freezing mine off, and you know this tushy is way too cute for that.”
I scrubbed a palm over my face.
Fucking Tessa.
I glanced at Aster.
On a giggle, she gave me a small shrug. “You’re the one who told me she was only half insane.”
A light chuckle got free, and I leaned forward and gave her a peck to the lips. “Come on, it’s family time.”
Mine.
Hers.
Ours.
This time, I was going to keep it that way.
THIRTY-FOUR
ASTER
Family time.
I guess I never understood quite what that meant. Had never experienced it this way.
Family to me had always meant secrets. Loyalty without question. Submission without opposition.
And here we were, a mess of people piled in Trent and Eden’s little house. The only one we were missing was Gretchen because she was spending the night at her sister’s for the holiday.
We’d eaten and drank and laughed.
Chatted about the mundane that felt like the most important topics in the world because they were the things that mattered to these people.
And the truth of it was that I felt as if I belonged. As if I were a piece of this beauty. A glimmer in the light.
Held in Logan’s tender glances and touches, wrapped in his laughter and teases, the easiness he exuded when he was surrounded by the ones who meant most to him.
I was now certain I was included in that.
Logan and I had found our way back to the other.
The Little Star and the North Star had aligned.
And as we gathered around the tree to exchange presents, I already knew I’d been given the greatest gift.
A gift that for so long I’d been too fearful to ask for.
Juni crawled over to me and set a present on my lap. The child beamed at me with her adorable dimples. “There you go, Auntie Aster.”
Auntie Aster.
My heart clutched.
“That one is super extra special because I made it alls by myself and because I love you all the way to the stars.”
The roots in my spirit dug deeper.
Logan squeezed me from where he and I were snuggled on the floor together, that man wrapped around me from behind with his legs stretched out on either side of me.
Emotion thick in my throat, I glanced back at him.
To the stars, he mouthed.
“Well hurry it ups then,” Juni Bee said with all her sweet exasperation.
I choked over the lump. “I’d better then.”