Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 89238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89238 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
“And good meddling grandma practice, so yes, I’m officially responsible for the glow on your face.”
“I’m not glowing,” I grumble.
“You are,” she says matter-of-factly.
“I do not glow.”
“Yes, you do.” She doesn’t stop gloating till we’re out of the store and loading the cookie ingredients into her car.
But before she starts the engine, she fixes me with a serious look. “You don’t dispute you’re falling in love with her?”
Lying to myself has come somewhat easily from time to time. But I’ve never been good at fibbing to Grams. Especially when my heart feels ten times lighter just thinking of Elodie. But also heavier, since there’s a part of me—the dark, heavy part of me—that keeps wondering…what if this romance ends the way the others have?
“I am falling,” I admit, and this feels like stepping off the ledge of a tall building. “And it’s really fucking scary, Grams.”
She pats my shoulder sympathetically. “All good things are. Love, roller coasters, and eating shishito peppers.”
An hour later, I’m buying round-trip tickets for the ferry, setting my hand on Elodie’s back, and walking with her onto the big boat.
My palms are slightly sweaty. My heart is jittery. Grams was right. This is scary. It’s one thing to want to romance my temporary wife. It’s another to realize I’ve already fallen in love with her.
Pretty sure I know exactly when it happened too. Gradually, as I got to know her, then all of a sudden. The other morning when we talked in the kitchen and she helped me to see my past differently—that was when I knew I’d broken my own rule.
The one I set in Vegas when she was walking down the aisle.
When I warned myself to be careful or else I might fall.
Lot of good that rule did.
I’ve broken it, and I need Elodie to know what the other morning meant to me.
A December breeze whips by, blowing strands of her blonde hair as we board. Once we’re on the boat, I snag a seat by the window since it’s too cold on the deck. “Remember the other morning? When you asked about Hailey?” I ask immediately.
“Of course.”
Travelers shuffle past us, slumping down into seats, toggling onto laptops, tapping away on phones.
“I don’t think I realized I’d been carrying that for so long,” I admit. “How heavy it was too. You helped me to see that.”
Her smile is bright and hopeful. “I’m glad you could start to let that go.”
“I feel lighter in my own shoes,” I say, and holy shit. Nerves roar through me. It’s like I’m stepping into the future, leaving my old ways behind. It’s nerve-wracking, but exhilarating too. “For years, a decade, I held on to that. Kept it to myself.”
The horn blows and the ferry pulls away. “It’s a relief to let things go.”
“It sure is. So thank you for helping me.”
She nods, then she’s quiet for a beat before she says, “For a long time, too, I thought my parents became super parents with Amanda. I thought I wasn’t good enough. But a few weeks ago, she told me she liked that I shared my life with her, that she got to work with me, that we could walk to school together. And it meant the world to me that the things I’d been doing were the things she needed.”
“You’re a great mom, Elodie,” I say, wrapping an arm around her. “And sister.”
“Thanks,” she says. “I believe that now. She helped me to see that. But you did too. You helped me see that I’m not just impulsive. Even though, yeah, we are pretty impulsive,” she says, shooting me a playful grin. “You’ll probably never let me live down the we’re marrying the hell out of each other comment.”
“I might,” I say. If you stay with me.
“But your faith in me—like with the loan, and the shop, and what we could do, and my potential as a businesswoman—helped me see other parts of myself. Like how maybe I’m not as chaotic as I was raised. Perhaps I’m actually—gasp—responsible. Empathetic too.”
“I don’t know anyone who’s more like that.”
“I’m not sure I would have seen those sides of me without you,” she says, her blue eyes filled with emotion, and maybe possibility too.
And…hell.
I’m so fucking in love with my wife, it’s ridiculous. I’m going to need to do everything to keep her—starting with not scaring her off with a love confession too early. She’s spent a long, long time worried she’s impulsive. But she’s not. She’s thoughtful. I can’t risk losing her by moving too soon, by playing into those things she’s trying to leave behind.
We’ve got a few more weeks of working together. Then I’ll tell her. That gives me a few more weeks to win her big, beautiful heart.
It. Is. On.
The next morning, I take her to the de Young Museum for our secret date. She shows me her favorite Lichtenstein titled View from the Window. I’m not sure I have the tools to say anything intelligent about art, so I just ask, “Why do you like it?”