Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
I could feel my cheeks getting a little hot, and I hoped to hell it wasn’t visible. “Like everything falls apart without you around?” I joked, trying to deflect and talk about work. “Garrett and Brian can handle your construction jobs, they’re just not as good at them.”
Tristan snorted. “I wasn’t talking about our work, I was talking about us. Admit it, you wanted to come here with me.”
It was as if Tristan had a laser-focused insight into what I was really thinking, all of the time.
“‘Course I did,” I said. “I’d go everywhere with you.”
The look on his face was the best thing I’d seen all day—and I’d seen a lot of beautiful, amazing things that day.
“Whiskey sours,” Bruce said, coming back around and handing us glasses.
Before long, all of us had drinks in hand and the afternoon was slowly becoming evening. Tristan’s sister Lindsay came over half an hour later, and it turned out that the “surprise” she was bringing over was a new dog she had adopted, a friendly, middle-aged sheepdog named Sadie who seemed content to lie on the floor and get belly rubs all evening.
In talking with Lindsay, Nathan, and Shawn—as well as with Tristan’s parents, too—it was quickly obvious that Tristan had been right about his family, and right about the fact that they were worth rekindling a close relationship with.
Because the Wood family was fucking awesome. Their intelligence, wittiness, and energy could have been intimidating to Tristan when he was a lost, insecure teenager, but right now, Tristan obviously fit right in with them. He joked with his siblings about everything. He could shoot the shit with his parents about the business side of their construction company. He had his own skills now, after years and years of making it on his own out in Kansas, and he also finally loved and appreciated himself, after so many years of doubt.
It tugged at my heartstrings. For so long, Tris had felt like he only belonged with me. He’d told me that nobody else accepted him the way I did, and when he first moved to Kansas, maybe that had been true. But it wasn’t anymore.
And I loved that he felt comfortable around me, but I always knew that one day, he’d realize his worth. I was so fucking proud of Tristan, whether he was leaving Kansas or not.
So what if it was going to break my heart?
The whole family helped with dinner preparations before we all ended up with a huge feast around the long, wooden dining table. Another common theme among the Wood family was that they were all good talkers—Bruce and Jo could tell a hell of a story, and the siblings weren’t so bad, themselves. Nathan was more of an oddball and Shawn was slick and put-together. Lindsay was fun and passionate about so many things, including rescuing dogs, running, home brewing beer, and restoring old bicycles. She also wasn’t shy talking about her dating life, sharing hilarious horror stories of people she’d met on the apps.
And over the course of our dinner conversations, I noticed something that Tristan was doing that made me love him just the slightest bit more. Every time someone mentioned anything about local Jade River events or gossip, Tristan leaned over to me to tell me something about it.
“You’ll absolutely love the apple cider doughnuts,” Tristan had told me when Lindsay mentioned a fall festival. “The snow here is nuts, and you’ll sweat your ass off shoveling it, even if it’s ten degrees outside, wait and see,” he said when someone talked about shoveling snow.
Basically, Tristan was acting as if I was going to be here, too. He was making me a part of it. He really did want me here.
And it twisted my heart into a damned knot. I had more affection for him than I should have, but I also knew that none of this was going to end well.
Because no matter what, Tristan’s family was never going to be my own. He was my friend, and that was that. No matter how much I ached for a big, energetic family like this, I’d always be on the sidelines—especially one day when Tristan got married and likely had kids of his own.
And I couldn’t leave Kansas, despite all of Tristan’s little jokes about me moving. For the past year I’d been neglecting my promise to my dad that I’d restore our old home, and I wasn’t going to give up on that dream, even if I hadn’t made progress yet. I’d felt so stuck over the past year, so lost in mourning my dad’s passing, that it only made sense I was falling more and more in love with Jade River and Tristan’s whole family.
But this was his journey. Now, in front of my eyes, I was seeing him bloom. Seeing him belong.