Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 94609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
I paused and stood taller. “What is this?”
“What is what?”
I waved my hand in his direction. “This. Are you…happy today?”
He grimaced but shrugged his left shoulder. “I’m happy today.”
What kind of human grimaced while saying they were happy?
“Since when do you do the happy thing?” I questioned.
He couldn’t hold it in. A teeny, tiny grin came out. He puffed out his chest. “I caught a northern pike last night.”
I blinked at him repeatedly, trying to understand why he was so excited about catching a fish. “You fish all the time. Don’t you catch fish often?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “But this was a big boy.”
I stared blankly at him. “Forgive me, but I don’t know the ins and outs of fishing. Define a big boy.”
“A forty-inch northern pike!” he exclaimed, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. “Forty inches!” Now, Theo had a full-blown smile, and it almost made my heart burst with joy. I didn’t know a mouth like his could do such a thing. He looked completely different, almost as if he were transformed into a child. He looked so, so good.
Like a freaking smiling Bradley Cooper.
He held his arms out to show me the size of his fish. “It was massive. The biggest thing I’ve ever caught in a lake. This isn’t a common thing. I almost lost it as I was reeling it in, but I got that bastard. So thank you.”
“Thank me? What for?”
“For getting high as a kite. I wouldn’t have been on the water when I was if it weren’t for you stuffing your face with Doritos and cookies.”
I laughed. “Not all heroes wear capes.”
“Yeah. Some wear crumbs.” He shook his head, still pleased. “A forty-incher.”
“The things I would do with a forty-incher,” I teased.
Theo snickered slightly.
I arched an eyebrow. “Was that a laugh?”
“Laugh? Me? Never. I don’t laugh.”
“It sounded like a laugh.”
“Don’t worry, it won’t happen again. Unless I catch another forty-incher.”
“Do people eat northern pike?”
“Smart ones do. Most people don’t eat them, but they’re pretty tasty. It’s a whole process to fillet them because you have to cut the Y bone out. Northern pike have a lot of bones, which is why most don’t like to deal with them, but I’m good at pulling the Y bone out with the zipper method.”
“So what I’m hearing is you’re good with your hands.”
“Willow, I’m fucking fantastic with my hands.”
That made me blush more than it should’ve.
Theo continued talking about his big fish, and I couldn’t stop smiling at his excitement. For the first time, I saw Theo. The real Theo that Molly talked about all the time. The light in his eyes made my eyes almost water because he wasn’t an asshole. He was just a man who kept to himself and didn’t let others in easily. At that moment, though, he let his walls down.
My mind couldn’t help but wonder what it was that made him close himself off in the first place. Humans didn’t come into the world shut off. The world had a way of making people distant.
“I’m so proud of you,” I told him, clapping my hands together in celebration. Something was so beautiful about watching someone achieve a goal of theirs. Even if it was on a topic that I myself didn’t completely understand, it was so cool to witness someone else’s joy.
After I said those words, Theo’s smile softened, and he nodded once. “Th-th-th…” He paused for a moment, shut his eyes, then gently said, “Thanks,” before closing my door.
After closing the door, he turned his back to me, placed his hands on top of his hair, and shook his head slightly before he walked over to his side of the vehicle, climbed into the car, and began to drive into town. He glanced my way for a split second before looking back toward the road. He cleared his throat. “We have about a forty-five-minute drive to get to Green Bay for everything. It’s the closest big city from here.”
“Sounds good.”
“So as far as the ceremony… I’m not good at decorations or anything. My cousin’s son, Jensen, said he’ll handle the floral displays since he’s into landscaping and bouquets and stuff. I’m hoping to leave everything else up to you if that’s okay. I have no problem paying for everything, but picking it all out leaves me a bit clueless.”
“Luckily, decorations are my specialty. Plus, your yard has the best backdrop with the lake. I’m thinking just a ton of lanterns and strings of lights and color. Lots and lots of color.”
“Then that’s what we’ll do. Maybe for the table spreads, though, we can do a lot of rainbow things since PaPa calls Grandma his rainbow.”
I smiled. “I think it’s cute that you call him PaPa.”
“It’s all I’ve ever known. Calling him anything else would feel odd.”
“How are you doing when it comes to his health? I know Molly said it’s been hard.”