Total pages in book: 108
Estimated words: 104869 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 104869 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 524(@200wpm)___ 419(@250wpm)___ 350(@300wpm)
During those four intense months where they ate, breathed, drank each other up, this song—which they’d both looked up after their reluctant parting on that first night—had become their anthem.
And it had been glaring in its absence from their wedding.
That had been Smith’s first clue of the shitshow to come. He’d been so stupidly shocked when their wedding dance had been to a pop song that he couldn’t even recall the name of right now. Dazed, disappointed, and hurt.
She’d refused his help with the wedding plans. And he hadn’t argued, because she had already seemed so harried and distant. He hadn’t wanted to stress her further.
Even on their wedding day, she’d been so remote, and when time came for their dance, he’d gathered her close, knowing that that would be the moment everything would fall into place for them.
Only it hadn’t.
Their movements had been stiff and uncomfortable, a far cry from that first perfect night and the amazing months that had followed it. She hadn’t looked at him once. And the song she’d chosen… It had been so wrong. A total fucking affront to everything between them before.
And now she stood up there singing their song in front of a crowd of strangers, while staring straight at him. Her voice grew more confident with each word even while her hand was tightly wrapped around the mic and her body was rigid with fear.
The familiar lyrics, sung in her low, smoky voice, wrapped around him, grabbed him by the throat and squeezed the air from his lungs.
Goddamn her.
Why did she still have such a stranglehold on his emotions? How the fuck was he supposed to move on when it felt like she was lurking around every corner?
“Smith?” Harris’s quiet voice in his ear jerked him out of his dazed staring. “You okay, man?”
“Not really,” he replied, slamming his bottle down on the side of the pool table. “She’s doing a real fucking number on me.”
Harris’s eyes drifted over to Kenna, before coming back to rest on Smith’s face.
“She’s different,” the other man said after a moment, looking like he was picking his words very carefully. “I noticed it right away, when we dug her car out of the sand. She usually has her shit together, y’know? She’s always so cool and composed. But she seems so fragile. Tina is worried about her. About both of you. Before she showed up here, Tina had nothing good to say about her. Now, she’s wondering if maybe…”
The hesitation annoyed Smith, who felt like his every nerve was frayed to the point of unraveling.
“Maybe what? Spit it out, Harris,” he demanded, his words clipped with impatience. His friend’s eyes narrowed dangerously.
“She’s wondering if maybe you’re not being too fucking stubborn!” Harris spat the words at him. “And I am too. Look, brother, we’re on your side. We love you and we support you. We don’t know what the fuck happened between you and Kenny—”
“That’s right, you don’t know. So maybe butt out!”
“We don’t know what happened,” Harris continued doggedly through gritted teeth. “But she’s here, man. Clearly she thinks what you had is important enough to her for her to swallow her pride and come here to face unbridled hostility. That can’t have been an easy decision for her to make. How many times have you dissected and assassinated her character over the last six days? And she’s still here. Still taking whatever the fuck you’ve been dishing out. That counts for something.”
Smith shook his head, jaw clenched as he sent his friend a scathing glare before walking out without another word.
Chapter
Fourteen
Picking this song was a mistake.
Kenny recognized that fact the moment the first line left her lips.
It was the only song she felt comfortable and confident singing in front of others, but she hadn’t considered the emotional cost.
To her and to Smith.
She faltered when he whipped around and pinned her to the spot with a furious, accusing glare.
But as the familiar words effortlessly flowed from her lips, she found herself unable to tear her gaze from him. Not even when he broke eye contact and thumped his beer bottle down onto the flat side rail of the pool table.
He deliberately turned his back on her, his movements stiff and unnatural.
Kenny tried to control her expression, but her eyes were burning with unshed tears and her voice wobbled on the last word of the second verse. She adjusted her gaze to where the other women were giving her encouraging smiles and swaying in time with the slow music.
Shifting her focus off Smith helped steady her nerves a little, even though she longed to simply set the mic aside and stop singing.
But that would put a damper on the evening and raise questions from the others that she’d rather not answer. So she persevered and tried not to react when she looked up to see Smith saying something to Harris before shouldering his way through the substantial crowd of people.