Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 418(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125257 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 418(@300wpm)
But I last somehow, and when we pull into Evergreen Falls, I can breathe again. It’s late afternoon. We’ll check into the hotel soon, grab some grub, and then call it a night, and when that’s done we can check this off the bucket list.
Only three more items and a wedding to get through.
That’s all.
But as I come around to her side of the car and open the door, I remind myself that I said yes to her request to be her plus-one because I want to help her. When I offered to show her how a man treats a woman—with passion and honesty—I did it because she deserves it.
Not because I want to lay her down on the bed and kiss every inch of her skin. Worship her entire body. Make her toes curl and her fingers grab the sheets.
Though I really fucking do.
“Let’s get that candy,” I say. Hell, maybe some sugar on my tongue will distract me from my vastly inappropriate thoughts.
She gives me a smile—one that says she’s trying her best to be normal. “Thanks again, Lake, for doing this.”
This presumably being running errands for her sister. Going through the bucket list. Taking a road trip.
I blow out a breath and glance briefly down the street of the town that’s known for going all out for the Christmas holidays but also doesn’t seem to hold back on spring decor either. The streetlamps are decorated with flickering pastel lights, and the stores are dressed up with illustrations of flowers, birds, and butterflies in the windows.
It’s all so festive, and I hate it on principle.
Oh shut up, you grump. Remy probably loves it. Bet she’d enjoy a bouquet of flowers or some chocolates just to celebrate that spring is almost here. And you’d enjoy giving them to her.
Great, now my brain is calling me out on my hypocrisy.
We go inside The Candy Cottage. The smell of sugar smacks me in the face.
Remy’s eyes pop as she looks around. And she’s, yup, the kid in a candy shop, and this is a new bit of intel about her. I file it away in my Remy list, along with the succulents, the spreadsheets, the notebooks, the strappy shoes she wears, the off-the-shoulder sweaters she likes, and the watches of mine she admires. I file it beneath the therapy she goes to in order to work on her need to feel in control, even though I think she’s fucking amazing as is, but I admire the hell out of the fact that she wants to improve.
What kind of candy does she like best? I try to read her as she drinks in the shelves of nostalgic candy like Lemonhead and PEZ, then the glass jars stuffed with all kinds of gummy bears, gummy worms, gummy monkeys, Swedish Fish, raspberry treats, and gummy soda bottles, all with signs that say Vegan AF.
I snap my gaze to the register. “Are they normally not vegan?”
A woman behind the pink and white counter with curly black hair and warm dark skin says, “Actually a lot of candy has gelatin, which is made from beef.”
I cringe. “So I’ve been eating beef candy all these years?”
“Well, not if you get it from here,” she says, gesturing to her shop. “We’re proudly meat-free. But yes, gelatin is common in a lot of candy from licorice to gummy bears.”
I cringe. “I don’t ever want to eat licorice again.”
“Or just eat this licorice,” she says, patting a jar with vegan licorice, next to a discount red basket full of Valentine’s candy, all marked Vegan AF too.
Remy strides closer to me, her gaze curious. “Do you have a thing for licorice, Lake?”
“Until I learned I was eating meat when I thought it was sugar.”
Remy pats me on the arm, her brown eyes twinkling. “Let me help you. I’m kind of a candy aficionado.”
Before I know it, the candy lover is scooping up the wedding favors, and buying up the licorice, and something about the competence she displays in breezing through the store irks me—like it means she’s already and easily moved the hell on from the other afternoon when she fell apart in bed, my face buried in the crook of her neck. But the way she sails through the store excites me too.
That’s the problem with obsession.
You just can’t hit the off button so quickly. Especially when she buys up discounted Valentine hearts that say things like bite me.
That’s totally not going to make me think of what I’m not having with her.
* * *
As the sun dips low on the horizon, we pass the North Pole Nook and Tavern and turn down a side street, then I pull up to the Chestnut Inn. Since this town’s bread and butter is Christmas, there are chestnuts roasting on the sign in the yard but no snow on the ground, or the hint of it in the air.