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)
“Sounds like they understand people can change,” I said softly. “You’re thirty years old now, for God’s sake. And you weren’t a fuck-up failure as a teenager, you were just lost.”
He puffed out a little laugh. “I guess I’m the one who changed. Maybe my family has been awesome all along. It… it hurts to think of all the time I’ve lost with them, being here in Kansas over the last twelve years, you know?”
“You had to learn and grow on your own,” I said. “And anyways, I’m sure glad you’re here in Kansas with me. You’ve made a whole life here, Tris. You have a home. A good job. Friends. You are successful.”
“Hey,” he finally said, changing the subject abruptly. He nodded over at my phone, which was sitting on the tree stump between our chairs. “Looks like you made plenty of other friends while I was gone, eh?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Any cute guys?”
I shook my head. “No. It’s not like that.”
He bent over, looking at my phone and reading off the text messages I was getting. “Text message from Sam: ‘The Big Rock Cock is positively throbbing tonight.’ What the hell is the Big Rock Cock? You sure Sam isn’t a new hookup?”
I puffed out a laugh. “Sam is very happily in a relationship with his stepbrother, actually,” I said.
“Ooh, juicy,” Tristan said.
“It’s actually really sweet,” I told him. “And the Big Rock Cock is sort of a… statue, or sculpture, in Red’s Tavern.”
“A penile one?”
I snorted. “I think it wasn’t meant to be a dick, but over time people have decided it definitely is.”
“Sounds pretty awesome to me.”
“And no, none of the people on that group text are hookups,” I said. “I just got added to a group chat with a lot of the guys from Red’s Tavern. They send weird shit like that all of the time. I love it, even if sometimes I’m convinced they’re all nuts.”
Tristan reached out to squeeze my arm. “I’m glad you’re finally going to Red’s more,” he said softly. “I always thought it would be good for you to… you know—”
“To actually try dating?” I offered.
“To try to meet more guys, yes,” Tristan said.
“I seem to remember you hating the last two boyfriends I had.”
“Yeah, because they were fucking pricks,” Tristan said. “They didn’t deserve you. And you deserve someone amazing.”
I chewed the inside of my cheek. He definitely wasn’t wrong, but that didn’t mean I liked hearing it.
“I’m too old for the dating game, anyway.”
Tristan snorted. “You’re only thirty years old, too,” he said. “You’re just as young as me, even if you act like an old man half the time.”
“I do not act like an old man,” I protested.
“Oh yeah?” Tristan asked, a devilish grin on his face. “Mr. Meat-and-Potatoes dinners. In charge of everything. Badass general contractor by the age of twenty-seven, for fuck’s sake.”
I was chuckling as I sipped my beer. “Shut your mouth.”
“You fuckin’ love me,” he retorted, crossing his legs in front of him.
I sure as shit couldn’t argue with that.
“Well, when your ass is actually here in town, I don’t need to go to bars, anyway,” I told him. “I can just drink around this campsite with you. My favorite place to be.”
“And then end up in bed with me, instead,” he joked.
“Sleeping in a sleeping bag next to you is not the same as being in bed with you.”
“You still get to hear my idiotic ramblings before we fall asleep,” Tristan told me. “And hear me snore. And probably see my awkward boners in the morning because you always wake up so damn early—”
“Shut up,” I said, giving him a little shove on the shoulder. “You don’t snore, anyway.”
“And I tend to at least keep my dick inside my own sleeping bag when I have morning wood,” he added.
“Of course.”
We lapsed into a comfortable silence as we drank our beers, the last of the daylight dappling through the leaves above us. I had spent so much time with Tristan, sitting right here, watching light come through these same two trees. Once, we’d had to set up our tent in the pouring rain as water sloshed down through the leaves and camping seemed nearly impossible. But we had made it work. Together, we could make all kinds of things work.
I pulled in a long breath. “I could come to this same campsite forever with you,” I told him.
Tristan gave me a weird glance again, and for a split second, I thought my head was going to explode.
“Tris, just tell me—”
“I’m—I’m moving back to Colorado,” he blurted out all at once, his eyes going wide as he stared at me.
I was silent.
“I’m moving back,” he continued. “At the end of the summer.”
“Oh, bullshit,” I said, polishing off the last of my beer. “Also, we should get started on dinner—”