Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 157273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 157273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 786(@200wpm)___ 629(@250wpm)___ 524(@300wpm)
Fine. Everett could hear me beg too. I didn’t mind a bigger audience.
Allie laughed as Everett set her down, and the ache in my chest swelled. I didn’t have to hear it—just the sight of her happiness started welding the pieces of my broken heart back into shape.
Reagan came through the doors next, holding a giant bouquet of pink and white balloons, then swept Allie into another grin-inducing embrace.
My pocket buzzed, and I absentmindedly reached for my phone as the group disappeared into the MBC building.
Allie was home, healthy, happy, and living out her dream.
What right did I have to fuck with that? To throw her life into upheaval when she’d fought so hard to get it back? Doubt crept in, and determination shoved it back in its place. There was no one on the planet who could love Allie as well as I could.
I glanced down at my phone, expecting to see Gavin’s name, and instead receiving the reply I’d waited days for.
Nielson: What’s this I hear about you wanting out of Cape Cod?
My thumbs hovered over the keyboard. Coming here had been impetuous, but there wasn’t a lot of room in Allie’s life for that, as evidenced by her coming to practice even earlier than she said she normally did. Whatever move I made next had to keep her best interests in mind. Not just mine.
I had to fully commit, be the man she not only loved, but deserved. And the man she deserved would be just as driven as she was, just as passionate, just as considerate. We were connected, bound by fate, or luck, and that would never change. No matter how much time passed, or even if she never forgave me holding on to my secrets, I would love Allie Rousseau until the day I died.
Like she’d said, waves came in sets. She was happy here, and I had no choice but to match her energy. I was a dreamer who’d fallen in love with a dreamer, and it was time to stop dreaming and act.
Ellis: I need to call in that favor.
“You’re really not going to tell her?” Gavin sat in the leather armchair of my office four weeks later, spectating as I finished packing yet another box.
“Nope.” Allie’s absence drained the colors from the sky, the taste from my food, the peace from a hot shower . . . every cliché in the book applied. I’d lost them all, and it was time to go. “The show opens in less than a month, and she needs to stay focused.”
“You’re just going to . . . move.” He reached for the display baseball on the bookshelf beside him. “Pack up your whole life without so much as talking to her about it? Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for you getting the fuck out of here. Chase that dream. Yay, dreams. But you do know her forgiving you requires actually talking to her, right? You have a plan?”
“Right now, my plan is to pick up the phone if she calls—”
“Since when are you the waiting guy?” Gavin sat back in the chair. “Fucking call her. Better yet, show up at her door and actually speak to her this time.”
I shook my head. “That’s what I need. Allie needs time to think things through—”
“She’s had a month,” he interrupted.
“Yeah, well . . . I pulled her out of a burning car and left her sister in it, then didn’t tell her because I was too chickenshit to lose her.” I put the last book in the box and grabbed the tape roll. “It might take more than a month—or even a year or two—for her to think of me without that particular fact involved.” I couldn’t fault her for it. “She might never forgive me. Why do you think I pulled that favor?”
“If I did, she can too.” He threw the ball up and caught it. “Not that I’m saying you needed forgiveness. You acted like you always do, and because of it, Allie’s alive. If you’d gotten there a minute later?”
I closed my eyes against the agonizing imagery that brought up.
“Time was the enemy, Hudson. Not you.” He tossed the ball again.
“You didn’t speak to me for weeks,” I reminded him.
“Weeks, not months, and eventually I did.” He repeated the motion, catching the ball every time it came down.
“Sure, after you came to the conclusion that if it had been you, Lina would have lived.” Another reality I refused to accept, even for Juniper’s sake.
He nodded. “Lina would have lived.”
The tape squealed as I sealed the box.
“But as much as I loved that girl,” he continued, “it was nothing compared to watching you and Allie.” The ball went up and came back down. “And I told her that. Told her to let you hold on to her.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry, by the way. Not sure I ever said that. I didn’t mean to let it slip about the hospital.”