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)
“Why do you say you’re screwed?” Mitch asked, a little calmer than Sam.
“Because I have no clue on Earth how the hell I’m going to move to Colorado,” I said, glancing down at the diminishing whiskey in my cup. “My whole life is here. My work. My friends.”
“And your father’s house,” Red said quietly, nodding his head once.
“And my father’s house,” I said. The four of them all seemed to deflate a little at that moment, realizing exactly how complicated my feelings about moving must actually be. I bit the inside of my cheek. “It’s so much at once. And I know it sounds stupid, because I should have done something with my dad’s house so much sooner. It’s been a year. A year of being unable to change his house or touch it in any way, let alone sell it.”
“I’m so sorry, Jack,” Sam said, reaching out to put his palm to the back of my hand on the bar, giving it a squeeze. “And I know a year sounds like a lot of time in theory, but a year is nothing. Nothing at all. Fox has told me that the void in his heart that losing his mother made will just be there forever, you know?”
“Right,” I said. “I know.”
“But that doesn’t mean that moving to Colorado with Tristan isn’t the right idea,” Perry said, in the kindest way possible. “I’ve only known you for a little while, but I can safely say that you light up when you’re with him, in a way that can only mean one thing.”
I puffed out a feeble laugh. “That I’m way too obsessed with my best friend?”
“That you’re meant to be with him,” Perry said.
“I try to keep out of other people’s business unless they ask me for advice,” Red said, “but in this case, I agree with Perry. What you and Tristan have is love. The deepest, purest kind. Just my two cents.”
“The idea of selling my dad’s house, my childhood home, to some random person is insane, to me,” I said. “Someone could change it for the worse. For God’s sake, they could bulldoze the thing.”
“I don’t think anyone could bulldoze that house. It’s too cute,” Sam said, shaking his head. “You sent pictures of it to the group text one day and I gasped. It’s the perfect, quaint craftsman home, and someone is going to love the hell out of that house.”
My throat lurched as he said it. I swallowed past the tightness, my leg suddenly bouncing beneath the bar.
“That’s what kills me,” I said. “Even hearing you say that. Someone is going to love the house? Some stranger, you know?”
Just then, Roman and Theo walked through the front doors. Theo Castille was a world-famous actor who had moved to Amberfield for a quieter life earlier this year, and I’d been his general contractor when he wanted to renovate his home. Roman was his bodyguard who had become his boyfriend, and the two of them looked smitten as ever as they sat down.
I nodded at them and they gave me a happy wave.
“House treating you well?” I asked from a few seats away.
“It’s a dream,” Theo said. “Nobody does it better than you.”
“Their drinks are on me tonight, okay?” I told Mitch, who was about to go help them.
“Sounds good,” he said. “Though I’m sure they’ll just want to repay you.”
Mitch went off to help them and Red kept cleaning portions of the bar I’d already seen him clean, and I was pretty sure he was just trying to stay nearby me so I wouldn’t be lonely. It was about the nicest thing in the world, and I definitely appreciated it right now. Perry went back in the kitchen and then came back out a moment later with a tiny plate of grilled meat, winking at me.
“Don’t share any with him,” Perry whispered, nodding toward Sam.
“You’re amazing,” I told Perry before he had to go back into the kitchen and keep working.
As I sipped down the rest of my neat whiskey, I realized that Sam was staring at me, with an increasing intensity. He looked like he was plotting and planning in his mind, and after a solid minute of being stared at, I was at my breaking point.
“Listen, if you want the grilled chicken that badly, you can have this—”
“I’m going to tell you something,” Sam interjected, just as intensely as he’d been staring at me. “And you have to promise me that if it makes you uncomfortable, at all, you can just tell me to fuck off. Okay?”
“Sam, I don’t think this is the right time to ask Jack for a threesome,” Red said in a warning tone.
Sam waved his hand like he was shooing a fly. “I’m horny, but I’m not insane,” Sam said. “Of course I’m not asking him for a threesome.”