Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“Riiiiight. Shit. I kind of forgot about that. Maybe they’ve already left. I’ll go check.” I scramble off his lap and walk to the window, where I peek through the blinds. “There’s no one out there.”
“Fuck,” Rick curses.
“I’m sure they’ll call or stop by again to discuss. Or maybe they’ll just email you a number of plans and mockups to choose from. I’m sure most people need a visual, so they probably have tons of renderings. That would make the most sense.”
“Perhaps.”
“If they’re gone, then we don’t need to stop talking. We can discuss so much more about—”
He stalks across the room in a feverish way and kisses me before I can continue. He kisses me until I just about forget everything, which I think is the point. He doesn’t want to keep talking. He clearly had a plan and a strategy coming over here.
“We could go to the library and find some books on dirt. Maybe make out between the shelves,” I say.
“No.” He backs me up to the wall and studies my lips with major heat and want written all over his face. I’m dead here. So dead.
“You know an expiration date is really just a suggestion, right? It’s a best-before kind of deal, not a total termination, except in the case of bread. Don’t eat moldy bread again. In fact, you might need me to move down here just to cook for you.”
Silence. Dead. Hard. Silence. Not even a cricket would dare to break this total void of nothingness. It bogs down around us, and I can feel my heart grinding to slow nothingness as well.
“Rick?” I say his name when he doesn’t reply.
“No, Aspen. You shouldn’t have to do that. I don’t need you to do that.”
“Needs and wants,” I whisper bravely, turning my chin up. “They’re different.”
“I know what I need,” he mutters, but his nose presses against mine, his lips just a breath away.
“Okay, Patrick McDonald. Okay.”
He’s both for me.
A need and a want.
Chapter fifteen
Rick
I’m jolted out of sleep the next morning, and at first, I don’t know what time it is. The office is closed up, but I can tell there’s enough sunlight coming in for it to be late morning.
I have no idea when I fell asleep other than it was sometime in the very early hours of the morning. Maybe two or three. I never meant for it to happen. My back feels like the unholy death of hell from sleeping at an obviously awkward angle in this chair.
I’m instantly tuned in to the sound of Aspen’s voice coming from down the hall.
“No, Mom, it’s okay. I just texted you yesterday. It’s all good. No, yeah, I’m not at the apartment. Not right now. When will I be home? Well, that might be a little bit complicated.”
I freeze as she’s quiet for a pause, and then she launches into the whole story. I guess she’s been found out. I knew she was doing damage control via text, and I didn’t think it would actually work, but I wasn’t going to tell her how to run her life or handle her family. It’s not like I have one of my own to tell her how it should or shouldn’t go.
From the way Aspen’s voice becomes louder and rises in pitch, I can only surmise that whoever is on the other end is freaking out.
“Mom, no. Put dad on,” she says into her phone.
I guess it’s her mom.
“Whoa, you don’t have to do that. You don’t have to come all this way. I’m fine. Yes, fine.” This pause is the longest yet. “It’s what Jace wanted. I know I should have told you all about it, but you wouldn’t have let me do any of this. I had to come alone.” She snorts. “Work wouldn’t give me time off, so I had to quit. No, Mom. I’m not having a crisis. I told you about the letter. It was more than that. It was more like a will. If Jace asked you to do something, you would have done it without question, just like Dad or his mom would have. It’s the same for me.”
I should go and help her and save her from the verbal chewing out she’s getting and is probably going to get from her dad when he comes on the line.
I can only imagine her parents showing up here and giving me more than a verbal beatdown. They’d ask me what I’d done with their daughter, and I’d have to tell them that I made her my wife. I’m not sure if they know that part yet. Aspen only mentioned coming here and the letter, or so I’ve heard. Her parents would probably shit enough bricks to reconstruct half a city if they found out she’s married…married to me. I’m a total stranger to them. I’m halfway across the country, and for all they know, I’m holding their daughter hostage, and she’s got the worst case of Stockholm Syndrome that ever existed. I can’t tell them that I haven’t touched their daughter. That I don’t crave her, and I don’t want to get wildly inventive when it comes to ways I’d like to pleasure her.