Total pages in book: 133
Estimated words: 128156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128156 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 641(@200wpm)___ 513(@250wpm)___ 427(@300wpm)
A light blush heats my cheeks, but I let out a long exhale, my mouth tipping up slightly as I look from him to the others milling all around us on the raised back patio and below on the beach. “This is what my dad always wanted for me,” I say. “Friends like them and Friday nights like these. A place where I could fit, you know, and not just… I don’t know, tag along, I guess, but somewhere that felt like home.”
I meet his eyes. Someone who felt like home…
His gaze is piercing, searching, and he scoots a little closer. “You feel that here?”
With me isn’t added, but I think it’s implied.
There’s an anxious hopefulness in the way he asks this, and I can’t help the fresh wave of nerves that arises at the question.
Still, I answer honestly, even if all I give is a small nod.
“Good. That’s…good,” he whispers, his hand sinking into my hair.
Footsteps sound on the wooden stairs, and Chase and I both look over as Noah appears.
Chase tenses, his hand falling to his sides as Noah comes closer.
“Hey.” Noah’s smile is friendly. “Anyone need another drink?” He holds up his empty water bottle, giving it a little shake.
“Nah, I’m good. Thanks.” Chase squeezes my hand, pushing up, and my eyes follow as he walks away, heading down toward where Mase and his sister are standing near the fire.
Noah sighs loudly, slowly lowering to take Chase’s empty seat. “I keep trying and he keeps shutting me down.”
“I think he’d prefer it if you punched him in the face, honestly.”
Noah’s brows snap together, and then a loud laugh leaves him. It takes him a minute to settle, but when he does, he turns his smile on me. “You know, I think you might be right.”
“I am right.” I chuckle, pulling the blanket over my legs, and look over to where Chase is standing. “He’s not complicated. Not really. He sees right and wrong, and with right comes recognition and with wrong comes—”
“A left hook from a right-handed receiver?”
“I was going to say punishment and bone-crushing guilt, but I mean, same thing, right?” I smile, but it softens a moment later. “He just wants to earn everything, including your friendship, and if I had my guess, I would say he doesn’t feel like he has. You’re giving it to him freely, and he doesn’t want you to.”
Noah thinks for a moment, nodding slightly as he sits up again. “I can understand that, but at the same time…”
“At the same time, you hold no anger and you already see him as your friend.”
“Yeah.” He sighs again, catching Ari’s eye from between the wooden slats of the deck. “I better go get that mocktail.” He pushes to his feet, but before he goes, he looks down at me with that same smile he’s always had. “You know I’m really happy for you, right? For the both of you?”
My mouth curves up and I nod, watching him disappear into the house.
I sit there a little longer, enjoying the scene around me and then push to my feet, keeping my blanket around me as I make my way down the deck leading to the sand.
Chase sets down a few logs, and rubs his hands together before coming over and kissing my cheek.
“I think they can handle the fire from here.” He playfully tugs at my blanket. “Come on, Angel. I’ve got a better idea for how to get you warm.”
My brows lift, and I turn my head his way, intertwining our fingers as he takes my hand. “Oh, yeah?”
“Yep.” He nods. “One that the others haven’t figured out yet, or we’d definitely have to share.”
“I’m officially curious.”
He kisses my knuckles, and together we walk along the same stretch of beach we’ve walked many times before, only all those times it wasn’t as a couple. It was as friends and always with a few others.
I can’t help but smile at the man beside me. Of course he catches me looking, and a small smirk appears.
“What?” he teases, shaking our clasped hands a little.
“Nothing.” I grin, biting back a laugh when he gives me a playful glare.
As I face forward, a familiar pergola built into the tallest hill of the sand catches my eye, a gorgeous white swing hanging beneath it.
“Don’t tell me Lolli said she’d share her swing with us? We all know how territorial she is over this thing,” I joke, but it’s kind of true.
This is the swing she and Nate fell in love on. His dad made it for his mom once upon a time, and he brought it all the way from their hometown, hundreds of miles away, as some grand gesture that only she knows the true importance of.
“Nope.” That one word is all he gives and then we’re trudging up the sandy hill.