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)
“So it’s never hard for you when you’re given an assignment for music?”
He hesitates and then shakes his head. “Music is the easiest thing I’ve ever done. I’ve been composing music since middle school and playing my instruments at a really high level for almost as long. I’m getting my degree because there are certain people who look for those things, but I think I could skip a lot of it and still be a world-class musician.”
“Not cocky at all, huh?” I tease.
“I know what I was born to do,” he counters, not smiling, but not frowning, either. Just stating fact. “The rest is details. Do you feel that way about writing?”
He seems to be looking right through me, past the light conversation and the small talk to the truth of who I am. The force of it sends a tremor through my bones to my most secret core.
“I do,” I admit. “I’ve been telling stories all my life. I used to make them up and tell them to my imaginary friend.”
“You had an imaginary friend?” Humor lights his eyes and expression. “What was their name?”
“It was Carlotta.” I let out a little laugh. “My mom was worried there for a while.”
“Were you an only child?”
“Yeah. How’d you know?”
“Lucky guess. Not that it’s surefire or anything, but I would bet most kids with multiple siblings like me don’t make up more people. Not when the ones you already have hog the bathroom, steal your clothes, and make your life a living hell from middle school till you leave home.”
“Are you and your siblings close? You said a sister and a brother?”
A shade falls over his expression and his lips press together. “Not like we used to be.”
“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“No, it’s fine. My father made a stupid mistake, cheated on my mom. My brother and sister chose to stay with him at his church, to forgive him. A lot of people forgave him.”
“But not you.” I put it out as a statement, because it’s obvious from the hard lines his face has fallen into that there is someone he hasn’t forgiven.
“He cheated on my mom,” Monk repeats, his tone neutral, but his eyes alive with indignation. “He was the pastor of this huge church where I grew up in Virginia, preaching purity and every shade of morality on Sundays, and fucking some young girl in our church as soon as he was out of the pulpit.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry.” I blink in mild shock and reach for his hand. I’m not sure why, but the deep betrayal I read in his demeanor makes it feel like someone died, and maybe his father is dead to him now.
“It rocked our little community.” He flips my hand over and traces the lines bisecting my palm. “He wasn’t the first preacher to mess up and he won’t be the last, but he was my father. He did that to my mother and ruined our family.”
“So what happened? He lost the church?”
“Oh no, the congregation took him back. Thanked him for his ‘vulnerability’ and ‘honesty.’ When my mother demanded a divorce, they sided with him. All the friends my mom made for twenty years building that church with him, and not many of them really stuck by her.”
“Except you? You did?”
“When she left, so did I. I haven’t been back to the house where my father lives or the church where he preaches since.”
Snippets from that night start to click into place for me.
“That’s why you were so adamant about not cheating on Petra.”
“Right. I’ll never poach anyone else’s girl.”
“And so the threesome kind of bent that into a shape you could accept?”
“Now who wants a megaphone?” he asks, raising one brow and yielding a half smile.
“Sorry.” I survey the other diners self-consciously, but no one is paying us any attention. “I’m just putting this all together now.”
“It worked because Petra laid out the rules and made it clear you both knew what was up. No deception. You agreed on something, and you both honored it. I respect that.”
“But you didn’t want to do it again,” I remind him softly.
“No.” He levels a steady stare on me. “I told you why not.”
I know she doesn’t mind sharing you, but I don’t think I could.
His words from that night echo back. Heat crawls up my neck and I have amnesia of the lungs, completely forgetting how to breathe.
His phone alarm squawks, and he grimaces.
“That’s my reminder.” He silences the alarm. “I gotta get to the studio.”
He signals for and settles the bill. As we leave Top Dog, his hand drifts to the small of my back, a light touch that burns through my clothes.
“Can I walk you back to your dorm?” he asks once we’re on the sidewalk. “Or wherever you go on a Friday night after a pretentious art exhibit.”