Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 117415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 587(@200wpm)___ 470(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
A long and uncertain moment stretches between us where I’m pretty sure he’s prepared to just take off running. Maybe he really did stalk me and is now regretting it. I’m likely more emotionally unstable than a real psycho tracking down prey.
Watch out. I’ll talk you to death.
But he doesn’t run. He just stands there awhile longer. Then, after a hint of reluctance, he finally says, “You … got me.”
He isn’t specific about which parts I got right or wrong.
I don’t really care. “Come here.”
His eyebrows shoot upward. “Huh?”
I huff impatiently, then go right up to him and, after sighing out the words, “Just come,” I take his hand, feeling bold enough to do so for some reason, and drag him behind me.
Straight into T&S’s Sweet Shoppe we go. I sit him down at the first table. I guess Billy’s gone into the back and the old couple left while I was outside since no one’s here. I hop behind the counter to fetch the First Aid. Sitting myself across from the guy, I pull out a bandage and some antiseptic, getting to work.
“Is this really necessary?” he mumbles.
“Are you dizzy? Blurred vision? Headache?”
“Seriously?”
“Do you know what day of the week is it?”
“Does anyone?” he retorts.
I frown. “Good point,” I concede. “Anyway, I don’t know what you cut your head on. Those lampposts weren’t exactly installed yesterday. Hope you’re up on your Tetanus shots.”
“Uh, what?”
“Hold still.” I press a gauze pad to his gash. He winces and flinches away. “Sorry. Can you hold this there? Keep a teeny bit of pressure. Scalp cuts can bleed a lot, but they’re usually nothing.”
He takes the gauze pad from me.
Our fingers graze.
Then we lock eyes for some reason.
My heart does a happy little dance without my permission.
Something jumps in his glassy eyes, as if he actually saw the dance somehow and is stunned by it.
Uh, what just happened?
“Why do you think he’s a sellout?” he asks, voice softer.
His question throws me so far off, I forget the alcohol swab in my hand. “Did you seriously come all the way out here to Spruce just to have the last word about that guy?”
He drops his hands to the table and leans in. “If you gave him a chance, maybe you wouldn’t think he’s a sellout.”
“I don’t know him well enough to think he’s a—Hey.” I take his hand—the one still holding the gauze pad that he just lowered—and lift it right back up to his wound. “I said apply pressure.”
And now I’m holding his hand.
And he’s looking at me while I’m looking at him. Again.
With our hands touching.
I retract my hand at once—how dare I—and return all of my attention to preparing the alcohol swab. “I … listened to a song of his … actually. The other night. Couldn’t sleep. It was raining.”
He squints. “Which song?”
“Don’t know. Didn’t get the name. Something about paths.”
“‘Easy Path to My Heart’,” he recites at once.
I wouldn’t expect less from a diehard. “It was …” I hear the rich, beautiful voice of Chase, and how those chords dug into me and had me masturbating with such overflowing yearning I nearly nutted in the bed. “… alright.”
“Just alright?”
“It was good.”
“Good?” He points at the ice cream bin with sharp, accusatory vigor. “Ice cream is good. A walk through the park is good. Music?” He chuckles with manic disbelief. “Music … should never be good. Music is soul-saving. Music finds homes in the pores of your bones and … and breathes with every second of your life, with every beat of your heart. Music … is vital.”
Again, I forget what I’m doing, captivated by his words.
And the bright intensity in his eyes right now.
The guy has a handsome face, I’ll give him that. He looks way different in the light than he did in that dim, musty hallway. More charming. Sensitive. Alive. Perhaps it’s because we’re engaging in an actual exchange of words. I’m listening to him. Feeling him. I’m not monologuing my terrible, horrible day to a stranger.
It’s actually unsettling, how fast he’s becoming someone I feel like I know.
Becoming not a stranger.
When his jaw tightens and his eyebrows pinch together with conviction as he talks music to me, it works all sorts of miracles across his face, making him look both strong and masculine, yet shattered apart and cute, somewhere between a boy throwing a tantrum and a man valiantly defending his lover.
I can’t really say anything to that, so I just clear my throat and nod at his hand. He seems to follow, lowering the gauze, and then I gently clean around the gash. He flinches only once. I stop. “Am I too rough? Should I be gentler?”
He studies me for a second. Then almost sweetly he says, “It’s perfect.”
I resume cleaning, gentler despite his assurances.
He doesn’t wince anymore. He just gazes upon me like I’m a different person suddenly. Pouring his dazzling, curious eyes into my own. It’s relentless, how he stares. Incessant. Necessary.