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)
Finally, his expression cracked, like sunlight suddenly peeking through a cloud. “Yeah, she would.”
I nodded. “She’d tell you that sixty feels plenty young to her, so thirty is still a baby.”
Jack pulled in a long breath, leaning his head back on the leather seat before scrubbing his palms over his face.
“Listen. I don’t want to go in there yet,” he told me, nodding toward his front door. “This storm is a bitch, but it’s not that late, and I don’t…”
“I don’t want to be away from you either,” I said, my voice low. “I don’t know if that’s what you were thinking, but it sure as fuck is what I’m thinking, and I’m past the point of keeping that shit inside.”
He looked at me briefly again like he was amazed that I even existed, like I was some mythical creature he couldn’t yet accept into reality. Then he looked out at the storm, somewhere far away, clearly trying to weigh everything in his mind at once.
His eyes were so sad and so beautiful, all at once. I knew everything that he had been through. I knew everything we’d done ten years ago, five years ago, and especially over the past year, and it put everything we’d done recently into a whole different light.
If only I could make him see himself like I did. As a person who could do anything—in his personal life, not only his career.
“Tell you what,” he said finally, letting out a breath and finally turning toward me again, putting a hand on my thigh. “I know of at least one great place to go in a rainstorm.”
11
JACK
It was like I was walking through a foggy cloud as Tris and I made our way up to the now-familiar brick front and awning at Red’s Tavern.
Firstly, it literally felt like we were right in the center of a cloud, because the rain was still coming down in sheets, and I only had one rickety little umbrella tucked in my glove box for Tristan and I to huddle under as we walked inside. We packed in close next to one another, protected in the humid summer air, hurrying into the bar.
But my brain was in a fog, too. I didn’t know how the hell to process what Tris was telling me.
My dick knew exactly what to do. Boy howdy, it knew, and it wanted to do those things every single day, thank you very much.
My heart, well, that was slightly more complicated. My heart had been existing in a funny state somewhere between elated joy and heartbreak for about a week now, never really knowing which was going to take hold at any moment. And I was pretty sure my heart was going to beat right out of my chest when Tris had said to me, out of nowhere, that he was tired of pretending he wasn’t falling in love with me.
Holy Christ.
Those words.
I had no idea if those words meant as much to him as they did to me, but I did know that my world had turned upside-down when he’d said it.
My brain, well, that was fucked. Useless. Truly in a fog, a state of mental overload that was so intense, I knew a stiff drink would actually make me think more clearly instead of less.
And that was exactly what I was about to do.
Thank the freakin’ Lord.
“A miracle! Actual customers!” a voice shouted the moment Tris and I stepped into the tavern, folding up the umbrella and leaving it by the door.
Liam Hardy—who was Red’s true love and also a well-known gay porn star—was sitting at the bar across from Red, nursing a non-alcoholic fizzy lime drink. I had met Liam once a couple of months ago here at the bar, and it had quickly become obvious how perfect he and Red were together. Red had opened up to me that night, telling me that for many years, he denied that love, until Liam came to town and shattered his whole world in the best way.
Red smiled, at me and Tris and then at Liam. “You act like I never get any customers, baby,” he told Liam. A deep pang of jealousy surged through my heart.
“Oh, I know you get plenty. Just not on a night like tonight where it’s like the sky decided to pour down enough rain for an entire year all at once.”
Liam was right. Red’s Tavern was emptier than I’d ever seen it. The bar was fairly popular, and seeing it like this was surprising but also a little comforting, in a way. It was nice to have the place to ourselves. There weren’t any customers right now other than us and Liam.
Red leaned over the bar and gave Liam a quick kiss.
“Oh, thank god, people are here,” Sam said as he came through the swinging door that emerged from the back kitchen. “Welcome, Jack. Welcome, Tris. Tonight has been so dead.”