Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69858 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
“I don’t want it,” I say in a low voice.
“That’s fine.” He moves as though to take my hand, then seems to think better of it. “It’s not for everyone. Take it from the guy who quit.”
I shift towards him. “You know when I accepted Elodie’s offer, it was supposed to be a six-month gig? I’d just gotten evicted—evicted, Thomas—because I was careless with the freelance business I was so gung ho about, spending more than I made . . .
“Then six months turned into a year. And then . . . I’m still there, and they want more from me, more commitment, and . . . that’s not me. I’m not someone who makes plans.”
“Sure you do,” he says quietly. “You make plans not to make plans. In a lot of ways, you’re the most deliberate person I know.”
I scowl at him. “Take that back!”
“Ah,” he says, very softly. “I see what’s going on here.”
“Do you?” I ask with a sharp laugh. “Because I don’t.”
“You’re not mad at me,” Thomas says.
“Oh, believe me, I am.”
“No. You’re not. You’re mad at yourself, because a part of you—I don’t know how big or small—is considering the job Christina offered. And you’re furious. You’re mad because it doesn’t gel with the Mac you want to be, the Mac that you think you are.”
I try to stand, but he grips my hand, forcing me to stay seated, to meet his gray eyes. “It’s okay to change, Mac. To evolve. To blow up the ideal of your life and build another one. Circumstances are always changing, we’re allowed to change along with them.”
He’s right. On some level, I know he’s right, and it makes me furious, both because it’s uncomfortable to hear, and because he seems to be reading me better than I can read myself.
“What if I were to take it—hypothetically,” I say, a touch desperately. “What if I were to take it and get stuck? What if I wake up one day and I’m fifty, still at the same company, working with the same people?”
“What if you are?”
The question is so simple, so drama-free and gently delivered that it seems to pierce through a bubble I didn’t fully realize I was living in.
And on the other side of that bubble, I see a billion different paths that my life could take, and all of them would be . . . fine. Just fine. Some could even be great. But I won’t know if I don’t try.
“Look.” He takes my hand for real this time. “You’re strong-willed to the point of being absolutely infuriating. Nobody can make you do a damn thing you don’t want to. And you can always change it up again, at any time, as often as you want to. Take the job. Ditch the job. It doesn’t matter. You’re still Mac. You’re still you.”
I swallow and look into his eyes that are so confident, so sure of me, that I want . . . I want . . .
For the second time in a month, I’m sitting on a couch and lean forward to press my mouth against Thomas Decker’s.
It’s a different couch, and with different results. His response to my kiss is immediate. This time he kisses me back, his mouth warm and firm and reassuring.
“The weekend’s over,” I whisper.
“I know,” he says, sliding a hand into my hair and pulling my face closer.
“It was supposed to be a one-time thing. I still don’t want to be your girlfriend.”
“I know.” His mouth trails over my jaw, down my neck, and I let my head fall back.
“And I—”
He pulls back with a rueful grin. “You’re not going to start talking about my mother again, are you?”
I laugh. “No. No, trust me, I am not thinking about Mary in this moment.”
I am, however, thinking a little bit about my own mother, about her reaction if I tell her that I took the job. Or worse, that I might be falling, big time, for a guy . . .
And I don’t want to think about that. Not now. My hands fist in Thomas’s hair, a little desperately, and he understands. He must understand, because he takes my hand once more and tugs me to my feet.
He reaches up, runs a thumb along my blue streak, smiling as he looks down at me. “Shall we try my bed? Maybe it’s the one that lets us down . . .”
“It would be irresponsible not to do our due diligence,” I say with a somber face.
“My thoughts exactly.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Tuesday Evening, October 11
“This doesn’t look right—does it?” I ask Thomas the next evening, tilting the mixing bowl in his direction.
He gives the tan-colored goo a dubious look. “It looks sort of . . . crumbly.”
“It says right here,” I say, picking up my phone to read off the apple pie recipe. “Do not overmix. Dough should resemble pebbles.”