Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
One could just say, it was without a doubt that hulking lumberjack could take anyone’s keys.
And if that wasn’t enough, he wasn’t stingy with the bowls of pretzels and popcorn, seeing as he scooped one out for every drink he served.
Not many people were communing that night, not verbally.
No one uttered a sound.
We were together, though.
Woven together by soft, gentle, sad songs of hope lost, promises broken and love always remaining just out of reach.
I could not say I wasn’t mesmerized by how handsome the singer was. The build of his body. The easy way he wore his faded olive-green button-down and jeans, the scuffs on his unpretentious, round-toed brown boots.
I absolutely was.
I could also not say I wasn’t fascinated by his deft fingers strumming or curling to press out the chords and how natural that came to him, like that guitar was an extension of his body.
I absolutely was that too.
Mostly, it was the music.
And the way his eyes often landed on me sitting at a table with three people I didn’t know, not drinking my beer nor eating from any of the bowls of pretzels and popcorn on the table, my eyes glued to him as he told his story.
His story was my story.
It was my story.
Through the skin and flesh, bone and marrow, straight to my soul…
My story.
I knew it wasn’t exactly the same. It couldn’t be.
But he got me.
He got me.
I had good friends. People I loved.
And no one on this planet got me.
But that man got me.
All good things had to come to an end, but fortunately for me that night, that end wouldn’t be the same as it was for everyone else at The Link just off County Road 10.
I knew it was over for the others when he sang Nick Drake’s “Pink Moon,” the only cover he’d done all night, because the vibe shifted.
They knew that was his finale.
And when he was done, twisting to lay his guitar in the case lying open in the only space still available on that stage floor, he didn’t even dip his chin to the raucous applause, whistles and hoots of the people in that bar.
He just clipped his guitar into its case, grabbed the handle and got up, proving I was right, he was tall—again, not super tall, but not short by a long shot—I’d place him at about six two. Then he stepped off the stage.
Immediately, a man and woman started talking to him.
I sipped at my second beer, which wasn’t even half consumed, waiting and hoping.
It was stupid to wait.
It was stupid to hope.
Every damned thing that happened to me in thirty-one years of my life had taught me that.
There might only have been about twenty-five adoring fans, but he talked to them, still carrying his guitar, and I knew that was his unspoken indication he wasn’t going to grab a whisky, sit down and gab awhile. He was going to allow them to say their words, then he was going to go home.
Five minutes slipped to ten, then to fifteen, and he didn’t look at me in any of that time.
Oh yes.
It was stupid to wait.
It was insane to hope.
I got up, shrugged on my denim jacket and wrapped my scarf around my neck. I slung my crossbody over my head, took a last sip of beer and went out the door.
I was unlocking my faded red old Ford pickup when I heard, “You followin’ me, or am I followin’ you?”
I turned at the deep, silken voice and saw what I considered in my perhaps not-so-amateur opinion was one of the best singer-songwriters of my generation standing there carrying his guitar case.
“You’re following me,” I told him.
He jerked up his chin and headed to a big, dark-blue (lumberjack bartender didn’t skimp on outdoor lights either), one-ton GMC truck.
I got in, reversed out, and headed to the exit to County Road 10.
He followed me.
I lay naked, curled up on my side, staring at the man bathed in moonlight beside me.
He was on his back.
He was naked too.
The sheets were down to his waist.
He had the same russet-brown hair covering his evenly moving chest, one leg cocked, the knee and most of his thigh sticking out from under the covers. He had one hand resting on his flat, ridged stomach, the other arm was on the bed between us.
He snored.
And damn the man, even his snores were melodic, quiet, low, rhythmic. They were the kind of noise that would lull you to sleep, not keep you awake.
How I wasn’t asleep was a mystery.
He’d worn me out.
He was the best lover I’d ever had. The best lover perhaps in history.
Among other activities, we’d had sex three times.
He knew every inch of my body.
He was deliciously controlling in bed, so alas, I could not say he allowed me to learn every inch of his, but the (many, many) inches he’d given me, I’d enjoyed thoroughly.