Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 142818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 714(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 476(@300wpm)
I put my hand on my hip and tilted my head. “Honey, if you’re gonna start slinging mud, you better be prepared to get dirty. Both of us are fucked-up in different ways. Which is the reason we sought each other out. It’s something in our chemical makeup that explains our initial reactions.”
I narrowed my eyes, wishing I could get through to him with my stare. Wishing I could shake some sense into him. “But not now, not after two fucking years are you going to tell me I’m just a little, damaged girl with issues and no real control over her emotions.” I shook my head rapidly. “No. I love you because you wear reading glasses and because you like everyone to think you’re scary and damaged when you rescue fucking puppies. You call me when it rains. You quit smoking the second I let it be known it bothered me.”
Inexplicably, tears stung the back of my eyes.
I’d just told him I loved him.
Holy shit.
I wasn’t supposed to say that. This was meant to be a winter fling. This was meant to be both of us getting … whatever this was out of our systems so we could get on with our lives.
But there was no getting on with our lives.
Not after this.
There hadn’t been since that moment on the roof.
Elden had gone stock still when I’d said the words that I definitely shouldn’t have said. Never once had I felt like a child in his presence. Not once. But here, declaring my love, completely by accident, I felt small and young.
I’d never seen Elden at a loss for words before. Then again, this winter, words weren’t really a priority.
“Baby,” he murmured.
I braced myself for it. For him to do it again. Tell me I was just a kid. For us to repeat the circle once again.
The ringing of a phone made us both jerk.
“Saved by the bell,” I muttered.
I ignored Elden, putting the phone to my ear.
“Where are you?” my mother demanded.
“I’m at the café, closing up.” It wasn’t a lie. It was the narrow line I trod these days. I never lied to her completely about where I was, I just left out some important details.
Mainly the important detail that was glaring at me right then.
“Well, hurry up, or I’m sending someone over to get you.”
Dread slithered through me, thinking of who my mother would send and what they would surmise seeing Elden here with me. “I’ll be home in five minutes,” I told her, staring at Elden.
“We’re not at home,” she huffed out. “We’re at the restaurant. I closed it down for the night. We’re having a going away party, remember?” She said the word remember much louder than everything else.
I searched my memory. “Mom, you never told me about a party.”
Something rustled against the phone. “I know,” she whispered. “Swiss thinks I forgot to tell you … after organizing this whole thing. As if a mother would forget her only daughter going back to college.”
“Mom, you did forget.”
“Shut up,” she hissed. “Swiss doesn’t need to know that. I am dealing with a baby boy, and he’s a lot. A perfect angel, but I’m a new mother and running a business. He needs to give me a break.”
“Okay, Mom. Don’t worry, I’ll be there in five,” I reassured her, hearing the hysteria in her voice.
“Okay, good, good,” she muttered. “She’s coming, she’s just … stuck in traffic!” she called out, I guessed to the people she’d gathered for this party.
“Mom, there’s no traffic,” I pointed out. “It’s like a … five-minute walk.”
“Whatever,” she snapped. “Just get here.”
I listened to the dead air, not ready to put the phone down. It was the buffer between the ‘I love you’ and Elden.
“I know she hung up,” Elden decimated that temporary defense, his voice low and throaty.
I pursed my lips, shoving the phone in my pocket. “I need to go.”
“The party.”
I tilted my head, scrutinizing him. “You know about the party?”
“Everyone knows about the party.”
Though I really wanted to, I couldn’t even smile in the face of my mother’s baby brain. There was something endearing about her forgetfulness. She had never forgotten things in her life with my father. She could not forget things. It would not have ended well for her.
Yet now she was safe enough to wear what she wanted, say what she wanted, argue with Swiss when and if she saw fit and she was safe to forget.
She was safe.
I tore my eyes from Elden. “I’ve got to go,” I repeated, willing myself not to cry.
Elden didn’t say anything. Didn’t move.
I did a last-minute check to ensure that all of my closing tasks had been done. I was half prepared to lock him inside if he didn’t move or speak, but when I tried to move past him to leave, he grabbed my wrist.