Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
I scribbled out the first thing that came to mind.
I think I’d miss you, even if we’d never met. It’s always been you. It will always be you.
Then I folded it meticulously, smiling as the shape of a rat appeared. Well, a fat, short rat.
I found a piece of thread in the junk drawer, made a small hole in the paper, and tied the little origami rat to Squishy’s collar. “Go find him,” I said, cracking the back door.
The little dog cocked his head, and I realized he wasn’t the most co-operative creature on a good day. I’d perhaps overestimated his willingness in this plan. “Go find him, and he’ll give you a treat.”
I almost laughed at myself, but then he shimmied his little butt outside and trotted off. He was probably going to rip it off and piss on it.
I closed the door and went to the kitchen window, watching as Squishy hopped onto the chair beside Wolf. He leaned over, took the rat from the dog’s collar, and unfolded it.
Tense seconds ticked by before he pushed up from the lawn chair, patting his thigh for Squishy to follow as he turned toward the house. He hadn’t even closed the door before he cupped my cheek and pulled me in for a kiss that left me breathless. “Please, don’t ever mention his name again.” He rested his forehead on mine. “Please.”
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who was irrational.
“And I’ll tell Nora not to call me anymore. Because if Brent was still calling you…” His fingers flinched against my cheek, as though fighting the urge to curl into a fist. “I’d feel like shit. And I don’t want to make you feel that way.” Another tender kiss. “You’re all that matters.”
“Thank you. And ‘he who shall not be mentioned’ stopped calling. Think the black eye drove the message home.”
“Good.” He fumbled with the waist of my shorts, nimbly unfastening my fly. “Now, let me drive my message home…” He shoved my shorts down, then picked me up and placed me on the counter before sinking to his knees. As apologies went, he was pretty good at them…
Twenty-Eight
Wolf
It had been a little over a week since Jade and I had gotten back together, falling right back into our old routines like there hadn’t been a year and a half separating us.
It was the first time in that many years I’d felt whole. At peace. Like I mattered and had some purpose in life. Of course, there were still occasional doubts, but one thing Dad had taught me was there were no guarantees in life. “Take what you get and run with it until you either give out or win the race.” I’d run full speed into being with Jade, just like I had run with the sick amount of money that Bear Bryant picture had brought in. Fanatics evidently had no problem dropping large cash for collectables, and that was one thing, I, as a university football player, had plenty of.
Luckily for me, Jade had been busy with work and exams the past few days, which meant she hadn’t noticed me busting my ass auctioning off football memorabilia. I couldn’t wait to get a decent amount and surprise her with it.
Speaking of surprises…I glanced at Jade in the passenger seat of my truck before I pulled onto a dirt service road. To most people, what I had planned for that afternoon may not be romantic, but it was us. The farther I drove, the shadows of the thick pines stretched across the lane.
“If you’re planning to steal another tractor, you could have warned me,” Jade said, staring through the window. “I’d have brought body armor.” She glanced down at the floorboard as I pulled into a grass clearing. “And running shoes.”
I cut the engine. “We aren’t stealing a tractor.” I opened my door and stepped out into the muggy heat and hum of cicadas. “Come on.”
I had just lowered the tailgate and climbed into the bed to grab the cooler when the passenger door opened with a squeal of hinges.
Jade folded her arms over the side of the truck. “What are you up to?”
“I’m not up to anything.”
I pulled a bottle of Strawberry Hill Boone’s Farm wine—Jade’s go-to drink in high school—from the cooler. It was absolute shit, the top choice of Dayton’s winos.
“You got me wine?”
“If you could call it that.”
“The fact that you think it’s crap shows how unrefined your palate is.”
“Hate to break it to you. Anyone who drinks gas station wine does not have a palate…”
She climbed into the bed of the truck with a smile that would have made Da Vinci reconsider the Mona Lisa.
I cracked the twist top and passed the bottle to her. Then I found the playlist on my phone we’d made my senior year. Kenny Chesney’s “Somewhere With You” drifted through the phone’s speaker. There couldn’t have been a better song, because every damn time I’d closed my eyes in the past year and a half, I had been somewhere, in my mind, with Jade. It was always her. Would always be her.