Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 145746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145746 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 729(@200wpm)___ 583(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
“Can we just take it day to day? And then tomorrow and the next day and not worry about forever right now?”
Can I do that? Discard the shape I thought commitment should take? What I want with Verity is not a construct. It’s a promise between our hearts, something soldered in our souls by the heat of devotion. She’s been through a lot, through more than I knew or suspected. She wants space to figure out what she needs, and she deserves space to heal. It will take time for her, not only to trust me, but, with the complexity of her diagnosis and what she witnessed with her parents, to trust herself.
Love is patient. Love is kind… not self-seeking.
Snatches of the verse from my childhood sift into my memory and anchor my resolve to give her time; to not only consider what I want, but what my girl needs.
Love keeps no record of wrongs.
Love doesn’t keep score.
It can forgive and create second chances like the precious one in front of us. Verity is it for me, and I choose to believe this is only the beginning of our forever.
“I can take it day to day, yeah,” I agree. “But it’s just you and it’s just me? For as long as I have you, I only want you.”
“And I only want you.” She hesitates. “And if you start to want something different, you have to tell me. I know you want kids.”
“I don’t—”
“I know you do. I’ve seen that look you get when you talk about your nieces and nephews.”
“What can I say? I’m a terrific uncle.”
“You’d be a terrific dad.” She swallows, her mouth moving with no sound, as if the words don’t want to come out. “With someone else.”
“I don’t want someone else, Vee.” I tilt her face so we’re looking into each other’s eyes. “I want you. I want a life with you. And some imaginary kid doesn’t outweigh that.”
“It’s not some imaginary kid. It would be your kid.”
“Not if it’s not yours, too,” I say softly, surely.
She studies me, her frown deepening from whatever she sees. “You really mean that.”
“I do.”
“What happens when you change your mind? It’s been a dream for you since you were a kid. You can’t know—”
“I know this is love.” I place her hand over my heart, letting her feel how it races under her touch and at the possibility of her keeping it. “Knowing things won’t always be easy and still wanting to be there for all of it. You say I want to do what my parents weren’t able to. You’re right because I want us to last, and they didn’t. That piece of paper didn’t save their relationship. They left each other, but I want to stay.”
“With me?” she asks tearfully.
“Yeah, with you. Be mine. Let me be yours. Let me love you. I don’t need the paper or the ceremony. Just you. Just this. Can you give me that?”
“It might get hard. There could be times when you want to leave or wish things were different.”
“So like any other committed relationship where you don’t know what the future holds, but you know you want it with this one person? Kinda like that?”
She narrows her eyes in a half-hearted glare, but her lips twitch. “I hate you.”
“You actually love me.”
“Yeah, I do.” She sniffles and cups my face, pressing a sweet kiss to my lips. “I think as hard as I tried to stop, maybe I always have.”
FIFTY-FOUR
Verity
“Verity, you’re here.” Canon stands from the director’s chair in the video village tent that came to feel like a second home over the course of the film. “Thanks for coming.”
“I wouldn’t miss shooting the final scene.” I imitate him stroking his beard in that way the cast and crew tease him about. “So will you cut that beard now that we’ll be wrapped?”
“I think this is the longest shoot of my career.” He strokes the beard thoughtfully. “The end of the road. Well, we still have postproduction and edits.”
“And the score,” I offer softly.
“Ahhh, yes. The score.” Canon quirks one thick brow. “Is Monk keeping you up at night banging on that piano, or is he using that massive studio he built underground?”
My cheeks burn at his assumption that I’m living with Monk, which, of course, I am. For the month I spent in New York with Tessa and Mel, he stayed, too, only returning to LA when absolutely necessary for any work on Dessi he couldn’t do remotely. We’ve been back in LA for two months, and when my lease ended a few weeks ago, it seemed ridiculous to renew, since I’ve spent so much time at his place.
“He’s doing a little of both.” I answer Canon with a laugh and a shrug. “Some in the studio and some on the piano upstairs. Listening to one of the greatest musicians of this generation play piano isn’t exactly a hardship.”