Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81375 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“Do you want a cup of tea?” She watches the window closely, as though the storm might come for her like a predator. “There’s only mint, and the kettle takes forever to boil the water. There’s no thousand-dollar coffee machine here, I’m afraid. And the tea was something I found in the cupboard. It might be five years old. Maybe that’s why it didn’t taste all that great.”
“You’re really selling me on it. A cup sounds great.”
“There might be bugs in it,” she adds.
“Even better. I’ve been rather protein deficient as of late.”
She doesn’t laugh, but she does sigh in a way that tells me she’s almost there. A thrill of triumph shoots through me. I want to keep going. I want to keep distracting her from her worries about the rain, the thunder, and the wind.
I want to protect her.
Keep her safe.
Take her in my arms, kiss away the fear, and soothe her with gentle touches, caresses, and whispers of my lips against her skin.
“Are you going to come back to Ohio with me then?” she asks.
Her words give me such a shock that my brain has to immediately jump ship from the thoughts it shouldn’t have been indulging in. I swallow thickly. This is why I’m here. I can’t come back for her. It won’t be right. It will never be right, no matter what my inner… well, whatever it is… thought and felt. I can’t rightly call it my brain and heart. That’s too easy and far too cliché for something so seismic.
Yeah. Like an earthquake. That’s it.
Isn’t it? Were the foundations of my world not shaken?
Dramatic, darling. Keep going. You might have a career as a poet in your future.
“I… am. Yes, I need to stop hiding. It’s past time to make things right, especially now that there’s no doubt in my mind that I need to.”
“I think you need to forgive yourself before you get there. My dad thinks you’re bringing the sun with you, so don’t swallow the night and set it down at his feet.”
Jesus. If one of us is destined to become a poet, it won’t be me. Dulcie can’t find her wry humor and dry wit right now, but what she’s saying is heartfelt and beautiful. My throat closes up and gets hot, matching the prickling at the backs of my eyes.
“You’d want to drive then.” She washes a few cups and a mug and sets them on a folded towel on the countertop. Not a dish towel, but a bath towel.
There’s no way I could get on a plane. I’m rich enough to afford one, but that always seemed to be extravagantly wasteful. “I could hire a private car for us.”
“Us?” she chokes. “You’d want to go anywhere with me?”
“I’m afraid if you’re not there, I’ll talk myself out of it.” Sure. Sure, that’s all it is. “I’m also afraid that if you are there, I’ll talk myself into something else.” I wince. Putting that out there is infinitely worse than keeping it locked in my head.
“Weird or not, taboo or not, I’m attracted to you.”
It’s not news to me, considering what happened yesterday, but my body still goes on an instant high, buzzing with immediate adrenaline.
“I know you’re the last person I should be attracted to,” she continues. “It would have been so much harder yet also so much easier if you were the arsehole I expected.”
“I tried not to be one back then either.”
She scrubs something in the sink too hard. A plate, maybe. “Would it be better to say we’re just two lonely people who came together? Like rogue waves that crashed up into each other.”
“Loneliness leads people to do crazy things. Everyone craves connection at some level, don’t they?” It’s beyond time to start telling the truth. That’s the man I always wanted to be. Truthful. Honest. The kind of man who doesn’t leave a trail of wounded feelings and wrecked lives behind me, although I had no idea it was that bad. “But that’s not what this is for me.”
“I don’t think that’s what it is for me either. Kindness is incredibly attractive. Humor too. And that dance you did in the kitchen. Honest to freaking pies, my ovaries haven’t recovered. Slaying hearts, slaying cooking, slaying panties.”
I very nearly choke on my own saliva. “If we go to Ohio, how can I not tell your dad what happened? He’ll hate me a thousand times more.”
“What happened was between us. It can stay between us.”
“Do you think we can be in the same room and people won’t know?” My face might be kind of fucked, but it’s not that fucked up. I don’t think even the paper bag I kept joking about could hide the way I feel about this woman.
Disastrous. That’s what the feeling is.
“Don’t you feel the tension?” I add. “All the electricity from that storm might as well be channeled and directed right between us.”