Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68309 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 273(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
If this were a viable engagement, I’d be livid.
But instead, I wandered outside, indifferent, to get some space and take a break from watching The Grant Show. I also needed a breather from the pretty girl in the Boho dress who hasn’t stopped shooting sad-eyed daggers my way since we arrived.
If I had to guess, she and Grant have a history.
I lean against the brick façade and dig my phone out to respond to a half-dozen texts from a couple of friends back home, my mom, a colleague, and two of my sisters.
“You never told me about the craziest thing you’ve ever done.” A man’s voice sends a sharp start to my heart, and when I settle down, I find Cainan to my left.
The door behind him floats shut.
He dips his hands in his pockets, taking his time moving closer. He studies me, his chiseled features shadowed in the dark. I inhale his cologne—recognizing it as the same one he wore the first time we met.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“At that Midtown bar last week. You asked me about the craziest thing I’d ever done,” he says. “But you didn’t tell me yours.”
He’s beside me now, back against the brick, arms folded as he stares toward the street. His entrancing brown-gold gaze flicks to mine for a second, and I lose my breath.
“So?” he asks.
“Shouldn’t you be inside with everyone?” I change the subject. Force myself to look away so I don’t have to revel in his magnetic stare or the way my heart hiccups when he points his attention my way.
It’s wrong to feel that way about someone you can’t have and shouldn’t so much as consider wanting.
He exhales through his nose, taking me in from his periphery. “Probably. What are you doing out here?”
“Same thing you’re doing—getting some air.” A brisk shiver runs through me, but I’m not ready to go inside. It’s so loud inside that it’s impossible to hear myself think, and after a while, being shoulder to shoulder and elbow to elbow with drunk and uncoordinated strangers becomes draining.
We linger in silence, but it isn’t awkward or uncomfortable—it just … is.
“I wanted to thank you,” Cainan breaks our wordless moment, “for what you did during the accident. For staying with me. For calling for help. For following up at the hospital.”
My mind goes to my sister. “Of course.”
“No, I mean it. Thank you.” From my periphery, I observe as he turns to me. “You saved my life.”
If it wasn’t me, it would’ve been someone else, I’m sure.
I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” I say, turning toward him for a fraction of a second, as if looking into his hypnotic stare any longer than that would rob me of my breath once more.
“I wish I could remember meeting you before the accident,” he says out of nowhere. “The month or so leading up to it … it’s like it didn’t happen.”
I’ve heard of that happening with brain injuries and accidents. I’m inclined to believe he’s telling the truth.
My focus settles on the scar above his right eyebrow, a remnant of the night he almost died.
In a way, it’s like a demarcation on a timeline.
“I hope I didn’t make too big of an ass of myself when I hit on you.” He fights a smirk.
I return one myself. “You definitely have a way with words. That’s for sure. But I forgave it all when you chased after me to give me my phone.”
“Really?” His head cocks. “I did that?”
“You did. Is that not something you’d typically do?”
Cainan juts his chin forward. “Not back then, no.”
We linger in silence for a second, and I contemplate a question to which neither of us will ever have an answer—why’d he make an exception for me?
I suppose it doesn’t matter now.
“You said the strangest thing to me before I walked away that night,” I tell him. The wind lifts a strand of my hair and brushes it across my cheek. I swipe it away. “You said, ‘Maybe next time we meet, we won’t be strangers.’”
He blows a quick breath through pursed lips. “I said that? Really?”
Nodding, I add, “You did. But then we met again—and we kind of were strangers anyway. I didn’t recognize you at first. You said I looked familiar but that you didn’t remember ever having met me in that bar … it makes sense now. With the memory loss, I mean. Nothing else makes sense though.”
He lifts his brows, as if he’s agreeing but only with his eyes.
“This whole thing is crazy, isn’t it?” I ask. “The way we’ve crossed paths all these different ways. Small world, I guess.”
Cainan faces the street again, his back against the brick. Lost in his thoughts, perhaps. There’s something deep and quiet about him—the way he looks at people, the weight of his presence.