Total pages in book: 119
Estimated words: 114284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 114284 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 571(@200wpm)___ 457(@250wpm)___ 381(@300wpm)
“You go shower. I’ll make breakfast.”
I furrowed my brow at him. “You understand I’m confused, right?”
“Oh yeah. But I promise to shed some light when you come back.”
All right, then.
Did this mean it was okay to have hopes again? Was he coming around? Or was he gonna explain why he couldn’t go any further with me? With Lane, anything could happen.
By the time I trailed down the stairs, running a towel over my head, the downstairs smelled like coffee, bacon, and freshly baked bread. I hadn’t been gone that long, dammit.
I wasn’t ready to get dressed for work, so I’d thrown on a pair of sweats—before I’d noticed in the mirror that I must’ve cut myself shaving. The bleeding had stopped now, though.
Upon entering the kitchen, I saw he had four little somethings in the oven.
“There’s no way you had time to bake whatever that is,” I said.
He looked up from the fruit he was slicing on the counter. “No, I cheated. I bought frozen, ready-to-bake croissants yesterday.”
Huh. Did not know that was a thing. Smelled delicious.
“You need a hand?”
He shook his head and gestured to the table. “Have a seat, please.”
Okay. I gathered the mail and magazines left on the table and set the stack next to the stove before I sat down.
Lane brought me a cup of coffee, then pulled my towel from around my shoulders.
“You can just throw it in the hallway,” I said.
That’s what he did, and then he took me by surprise once more when he came back to me and straddled my lap. And he didn’t stop there. It all happened in a fluid motion; he slipped his hands to my jaw and dipped down and kissed me.
It felt like he used a defibrillator on me. I soared back to life and quickly got my arms around him.
You’re not going anywhere this time, darlin’.
The sense of relief was indescribable. It tore through me, stirring up hope, energy, and happiness in its wake.
I kissed him back hard and tried to pull him closer.
He smiled a little and eased away from the kiss. “In a future relationship, I wanna make you breakfast before you’re off to work.”
Now we were talking. Holy fuck, the elation.
“Welcome to the future, baby.” I yanked him in for another kiss, far from satisfied after the first one.
“Wait—” He chuckled and put a hand on my chest. “I have so much I wanna say.”
It couldn’t wait?
Apparently not.
He left my lap and removed his glasses, setting them on the table before he went to check the oven. “My whole life, I tried to act like I was just another guy. I kept the shit I found extra difficult to myself—because I knew it set me apart. That it made me identifiable by a diagnosis and nothing else.”
I cleared my throat and scrubbed a hand over my mouth. Time to get serious. I could do this.
“The day I came to see you at work, I sort of lost it afterward and called Corey,” he admitted. “I told him everything, and his first response was to tell me I was doing a shitty job of pretending to be normal—if I kept acting like you and I couldn’t be together because of the extra miles I have to go to…I don’t know, feel sane.”
I cocked a brow. Interesting angle by Corey.
“In short, he said, if I want to lead a normal life—if I want to take on the same challenges everyone else does—I can’t hide behind a disorder,” he went on. “He has a point, unfortunately. We’re annoyingly good at calling each other out on our bullshit, and the other day was his turn.” The baked goods came out of the oven, and he set them on the counter next to the sink, which meant he had his back to me while he spoke. “Having ADHD, for me, is a constant struggle between aiming to be as normal as possible and knowing that I’m not. So one minute, I’ll be like, nothing’s wrong, I can do this, I’m more than a letter combination, don’t you dare define me by my medical chart. And the next, when I stumble upon something that scares the life out of me, I make up excuses for myself and use them as a weapon under the guise of protecting others from me.”
I blew out a breath. Sounded like a mental home run, that one.
At last, Lane turned to face me, and he wrung his hands awkwardly. “The truth is, Ty, I can’t always lead a normal life. Which is incredibly hard for me to admit.”
I could tell. I felt something shift inside me, and I sat forward, waiting to be given the signal. I wanted to hold him and say everything was gonna work out, but I had a feeling that wasn’t what he needed. He needed me to listen.