Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 73665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 368(@200wpm)___ 295(@250wpm)___ 246(@300wpm)
“Some people do,” I choke out, and then I choke on dust for real as I suck in a watery breath. My eye sockets are burning. I think it’s tears, but it could be dirt. I can’t fight for this. I should be agreeing with him.
“I’d die way before you.”
“What?” I yelp. “No!” I can’t imagine Rowleigh being anything less than fully alive, smiling those devilish smiles or those shy, secret smiles. It hurts to think of his huge, powerful body being sick or still. “You’re freaking forty-something! You cannot talk about death!” The first trickles of moisture leak from my eyes and run scalding hot down my cheeks.
“Everyone has to do it sometime.”
“No. Well, yes, but that’s not a good argument.” I stamp my foot down hard, which makes a big puff of dust rise up. There was probably straw at one time in here, but it has gone the way of decomposition and returned to the earth.
I cough and choke on the dust, blinking hard. I rub my eyes as the grit goes straight for my face, attracted by the moisture. It sticks to my cheeks, and after I give it a good rub, I see nothing but a blurry mess when I try to open my eyes. Panic crawls up my throat before it hits me that I just fucked my contacts all to fuckery by rubbing like that. They’re probably at the backs of my eyeballs now.
“I’d be the stereotype of the middle-aged guy who has to date a woman half his age to feel young again. Mid-life crisis and red flags all over the place,” Rowleigh goes on. His voice is coming closer.
My eyes focus just enough to take in his blurry, dark shape. He’s only a few feet away. That accounts for the delicious scents of manliness permeating through the dust cloud clogging up my nostrils.
“The fact that you can say that is more like a green flag.” I blink rapidly, hoping that will simultaneously clear out the dirt in my eyes and reseat my contacts.
“My daughter probably wouldn’t ever speak to me again.”
Oof, there goes whatever air my lungs managed to filter out a few seconds ago. Even if I’m freaking out internally and he’s all, we can’t be a cliché, and even if we’re both bundles of red flags, we’re still gravitating closer to each other.
I’m moving blindly. Literally. All I can see is a black blob, which is Rowleigh, and a whole lot of haloed light around his face, skewed by all the little dancing dots.
A long sigh or a gust of wind spills through the barn. I’m not sure which it is. Not being able to see clearly really sucks. Blinking furiously is also not a good remedy for magically manifesting my contacts back into place. I should just go and get my glasses, call it a day, and get tea and cookies from two super sweet old people.
Things I shouldn’t be doing?
Standing in place, sucking in dust like a vacuum.
Standing here, not escaping, when I can feel Rowleigh drawing closer like the laws of the universe are pulling us together.
Standing here thinking it was always going to happen because that first time we locked eyes felt like destiny. It felt like a hard, hot want. It felt safe, like home. Even when it was all wrong. And it has only become all wrong two point zero since then.
Rowleigh isn’t just hot. He isn’t all shadows and mystery and dark-eyed, strong-jawed, vein-popping, muscular intensity. He’s a real person with real hurts and a real heart. He’s my bestie’s dad. He’s not my age. I wasn’t even born when he was getting married the first time.
There’s no lounge, no piano, and no burning need to turn the night around with surprisingly good yet bad decisions.
Rowleigh is all wrong for me, but he’s also a guy who dashes out in a storm to save a woman from pelting rain and potentially falling trees. He’s a man who has deep regrets and other emotions and isn’t afraid to speak them. He can genuinely look at himself and see his own faults and failings. He’s the kind of man who would fake marry someone just so they can have their happily ever after with the man of their dreams, even if it makes him borderline miserable. He’s a man who felt so deeply that after being hurt the first time, he pretty much gave up on love.
He has a good heart. A sweet, beautiful heart. He’s guarded it from being alive, and I came along and woke it back up with promises of hated tacos, sort of my taco that first night, music played from my soul straight to his, and the awakening of other lost loves.
This is what we call a lose-lose situation.
I’m going to hurt him if I do this.