Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93453 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
“He might have alluded to us being an item back then, which is why Waylon was drinking.”
“Oh my God,” I snarl, looking up at the roof of the cab, “are they insane?” I go from feeling sick to my stomach to angry. “Forget I asked if they are insane, one hundred and fifty percent fucking insane to think that we were hooking up before. They are so delusional that they can’t see the only one to blame was fucking Waylon, and obviously them for enabling his bratty fucking behavior.” I shake my head. “How did you find all this out?”
“I may have threatened to beat the shit out of him and have him arrested for stealing your mail.” I throw my hands up in the air. “I called my grandfather, and he said that we should maybe not be home this weekend.”
“My brother and my father.” My mouth suddenly goes dry.
“They’re fine. Brady knows—” he starts to say and stops when I shriek.
“Brady knows?” My eyes glare at him. “Wow.”
“I needed to get you out of town.” He tries to plead his case.
“So instead of, I don’t know, telling me the truth. You lied to me.” I laugh and pfft out. “Great.”
“It’s not like that.” He reaches for my hand.
“It’s exactly like that.” I let him slide his fingers through mine and bring them to his lap. “It’s one thousand percent like that. You lied to me.”
“I wanted you safe,” he refutes, his voice tight, “and I’d do it again.”
“What are we doing? I mean, we love each other, but what does that mean, exactly? Like, what are we doing with each other?” I ask. He just looks over, his eyebrows pinched as he pulls over to the side of the road and puts the truck in park before he turns to stare at me. “Because if we are together and doing whatever with each other, we can’t be lying to each other.”
In one move, he reaches over, unbuckles my seat belt, and reaches down with his other hand, putting the seat back before plucking me out of my seat and pulling me onto his lap. “That’s the first time you said you love me.” His voice is a whisper, making my heart soar.
“Did you not know?” I ask, my fingers playing with the collar of his shirt. “I thought you—”
“Autumn, I’m in love with you and only you. And I lied, but it wasn’t technically a lie.” I raise my eyebrows at him. “The point is, I’m telling you now.”
“The point is, you should have told me this when it happened.” I maneuver on his lap to straddle him. “I can’t take lying.”
“I know, baby, I’m sorry.”
“This is the last time,” I warn. “There won’t be another time. I can’t do the lying thing.”
“Noted,” he says, and I’m irritated.
“Don’t ‘noted’ me, Charlie Barnes.” I move to get off him, and he grips my hips, pulling me back down on him. “What are you doing?”
“We just had our first fight,” he mumbles, his hands moving up to take my shirt with him, and I smack his hands away.
“You do not think I’m going to have sex with you on the side of the road,” I gasp, “in broad daylight.” I get off his lap. “Maybe if it was nighttime, but definitely not now.”
“So first course of action,” he plans, putting his seat belt back on and getting his seat back into his place, “make-up sex.”
I shake my head as I fasten my own seat belt, and he pulls onto the road. “So what did we learn from this?” I look over and ask.
“That in one hour, I’ll be having make-up sex.” He smirks my way, and my heart literally jumps in my chest at his smile. “And I’m never to keep anything from you.”
“I mean not in that order, but…” I smile, looking outside and realizing if this would have happened three months ago, it would have probably broken me. It would have cut me off at the knees, but not today. I take it with a grain of salt. They’ve broken me once; I refuse for them to break me again. “Yes.”
We pull up to his house in forty-five minutes, and the minute we do, he groans. “What are my parents doing here?” he whines. “It’s time for make-up sex.” His hand goes for the door handle as I slide my feet in my flip-flops.
“Charlie, don’t you dare say anything to them,” I warn between clenched teeth when I see the front door open and Willow come out, followed by Quinn.
“What are you guys doing here?” Charlie asks as soon as he gets out of the truck, and I meet him in the front of it. The last time I saw his parents was two weeks ago after they visited Charlie for a couple of days. Each day, they would eat at the bar at night, and he would spend the night with me, no matter how many times I told him to go home.