Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 85593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85593 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 342(@250wpm)___ 285(@300wpm)
Darcy’s eyes opened but she just frowned, concern plain on her face. I had no fucking idea where this was coming from or why it was coming out of my mouth. I hadn’t talked about Percy in years. It was like picking at an old, unhealed wound. But words kept spilling out.
“He was seventeen,” I said. “We used to ride our bikes down to the docks almost every day. Our favorite days were the rainy ones. We’d slam the brakes and try to skid our way around corners when the streets were wet enough. The two of us didn’t always get along and he could be a real shit to me, but every summer it was kind of like we called a truce. We’d get out of the house as often as we could, mostly to escape dad.
“I remember one time he gave us a thousand dollars in cash and told us to go buy some nice clothes for this internship he was trying to make us do. We took our bikes out on a rainy day like this. We ended up finding a wedding cake shop. We bought one for like seven hundred dollars with the money, just for the hell of it. We couldn’t fit the thing on our bikes so we took it behind the shop and had a cake fight.” I smiled as the memory played in my head. “That was just a couple months before his accident. That’s probably my favorite memory of Percy, though.”
“I’m so sorry, Dominic,” she said, putting her arm around me and squeezing. I was surprised to see her eyes were glassy with tears. “But it’s awesome you have a memory like that. I don’t even know what I’d do if I ever lost Eloise.”
“Yeah, it’s alright. He got a motorcycle when he turned sixteen and he always drove it too fast. Way too fast. Sometimes I wondered if he wanted to crash. Our dad put so much on his shoulders, and Percy was different than me. I always did alright with the pressure, because pleasing my dad has never been what was important. I just wanted to prove I didn’t need him. But Percy wanted to live up to my dad’s expectations. He wanted to make him happy, and that was always going to be an impossible task.” I shook my head and felt stupid when my eyes started to sting. “But what the hell do I know? It was just an accident. He’s gone now and I’ll never get the chance to ask.”
Darcy didn’t say anything for a while. When she finally spoke, her voice was soft. “Why can’t parents just be normal? Let their kids figure out their own dreams for once, you know?”
I chuckled. “That would be too easy, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah,” she said. Darcy nuzzled closer to me and held me tighter. She didn’t say anything, but I could sense the comfort there. It had been so long since I’d confided in anyone about anything. Marcus and Tristan knew about Percy, of course, but they’d been my friends when it happened. They only knew what they thought they knew about how I handled it all. The shit I told Darcy had never left my lips before, and it felt strange. In a way, it was like a weight had been lifted from me, but I also felt an odd connection to her–like knowing that she knew changed something.
I closed my eyes and tried to fall back asleep, but my brain was buzzing. Where was this leading?
I had no clue, but I knew the two of us were headed for a collision with my dad on Monday. All I could do now was enjoy the weekend and hope we found some way to keep my dad from sniffing out the truth.
24
DARCY
Dominic let me borrow one of his work shirts, which basically served as a dress for me. It was comfy and it smelled like him. I had every intention of stealing it and keeping it, no matter what he said.
I was sitting at a table in his kitchen beside a huge wall of windows. Dominic was rustling around in the fridge, putting together sandwiches for us. It was a sort of late lunch slash early dinner slash hungry after sex meal, and I frankly didn’t care what I ate. I was starving.
I watched him and let my thoughts run over the last few weeks. I wished I knew how much of my feelings for Dominic were tied up in the physical chemistry. It was impossible to know. Every time I was near him, it was like my brain dumped every single chemical on hand into my system and sent me into some kind of horny berserker state of mind.
I’d always imagined when I met “the one” it would be so obvious. It’d be like the stories that ended in Happily Ever After. There’d be sparks and flames and certainty. I’d go to bed the night after we met with nothing but dreams of our life together. I’d be gushing about him to all my friends and family at every opportunity. It’d just be obvious. So what was this? I was keeping him a secret, and it was confusing and up and down.