Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Would there be other men who came along and made her feel like this?
It didn’t seem likely, but what did she know? She was only finding her legs again.
“I don’t know what to say to . . . all of those big and vulnerable things you just said—”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“But I know you’re already important to me.” Whoa, making that admission out loud was like dangling over a ravine with one hand on a loose rock, and yet, his expression, the way his eyes snapped up and his jaw popped, kept her going. She wanted to make him feel the way his honesty had made her feel. Like someone’s first choice. “I think I knew you were important a lot earlier than now, I just can’t remember when it happened. Second, I think if some punk ass college kid asked me out, I think saying yes to him would feel . . . wrong. Because of how we, you know, carry on. But I can’t do anything about us being a porn category.”
Burgess looked away, then down at the ground while stroking his chin. When he looked back up at Tallulah, he was fighting a smile. “I guess it’s a start.”
“Maybe,” she whispered. “I’m going to go jump in some freezing cold water now.”
“How about you walk into some freezing cold water, Tallulah? I’m not going to be happy if you land on a rock and get hurt.”
She turned on the ball of her foot, throwing him an inviting look over her shoulder on her way to the pond’s edge. “It’s not too late to join me,” she called. “Forever is composed of nows. Dickinson said that. It’s the one time English Lit piqued my interest.”
He smirked. “I’ll be ready and waiting to warm you back up.”
“I thought you just said warming me up was against the rules.”
“I meant I’d wrap you up in towel. Like a burrito.”
“I bet that’s a porn category, too.”
His deep chuckle inspired a raw tug between her thighs and she almost—almost—blew off skinny dipping, so she could turn around, run to Burgess, leap into his arms and agree to be his girlfriend. He’d reward her so well for committing, but her mind and gut weren’t fully convinced yet that being someone’s girlfriend was the right thing to do at this precarious stage in her life. Her heart was another story, but she’d ignore that traitor for now.
Tallulah stopped a few feet from the water and took a deep breath. She looked back to find Burgess pacing in the headlights of his truck, arms crossed. Wouldn’t the man meant to be with her forever . . . want to take these adventures, too? Would he really remain on the shore?
This moment is for you. Be in the moment.
Before she could think too hard about the water temperature, Tallulah set aside the worry for another time and dropped the towel, walking straight into the pond. “Oh. Oh God,” she gasped, even as she plowed forward. “Oh God. Oh God. I just have to get my shoulders under. That’s when it’ll stop feeling like death.”
She kept going, focusing on the rush of adrenaline, the shock to her system. Her pulse raced a million miles an hour, a sort of giddiness steeling up the walls of her throat and gluing her back teeth together. She embraced the feeling of freedom and mischief and simply being out in the open, living, breathing the night air and leaving fear to wither on the shore alone.
Fully submerged now, she turned over onto her back and let herself float in the moonlight, imagining herself from above, looking peaceful, free of the constraints of trauma. What Brett had done to her. In that moment, she didn’t feel like a hypocrite who made promises and didn’t keep them. She felt more awake than she had in a long time.
Tallulah let herself sink beneath the surface, the water muffling everything except the heartbeat in her ears, and rejoiced in the simple fact that it was working. That she was alive to jump into a pond or watch a baseball game. Dance and learn and travel.
She wouldn’t take that for granted anymore.
A few moments later, Tallulah surfaced and looked over at the bank to find Burgess waiting there, his arms crossed over her towel. While his stance was casual, something told her he was preparing to jump in and save her at a moment’s notice. This man. Whatever shape their relationship ended up taking, he’d joined her on these first steps to finding her sense of adventure again. Based on the way her heart kicked into triple time at the sight of him, so regal and large and reassuring and supportive in the moonlight, Tallulah started to wonder if maybe, just maybe, he was one of the destinations on her journey.