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)
Oh yeah.
I’d told him about all my name changes too.
“Do you wanna know?” he asked, like it was an offer to find them.
I shook my head. “First, if they’ve moved on with their lives and they don’t want a reminder of how they started, I don’t want to give it to them. Second, we were little-kid close. We didn’t grow up together like brothers and sisters, going to each other’s games or celebrating each other’s birthdays. At times, we played together. Sometimes we fought like brothers and sisters do. Most of the time, I was up in my room playing by myself, or reading when I learned how, or exploring Frank’s garden. I don’t know if my life made me a solitary person, or if being around Frank and the way he lived did. But at the end of it, I’m a solitary person, and always have been.”
“Yeah,” he repeated.
“In other words, even after I was first taken away, I didn’t really miss them. I only missed my room, the home I knew. Even though my life in LA was effed up, I preferred it to the one in Tennessee.”
“Bet you did,” he said low and rumbly.
I read the low rumble.
“It’s long over, baby,” I whispered.
He took a breath.
And then stated, “Quid pro quo.”
I stiffened. “Hutch, just because I—”
“Quid pro quo, May,” he said inflexibly.
I shut up.
“The second one’s name was Danielle.”
Ah, shit.
“Couple of years after Molly,” he went on. “I was older. I was wiser. I’d been burned. I was also a few years away from getting out of the Navy. Finding my patch of land. Starting my training business. She was the whole package. Made Molly dim in comparison, and Molly was nothing to sneeze at. Danielle was so fucking funny. I think the first thing I fell in love with about her was how she seemed to always be having a good time. Not wild shit, like what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. She just dug the good out in everything.”
“Okay,” I said.
“But she was also smart. Sophisticated. She had great style. Upwardly mobile. Ambitious.”
I sensed where this was going.
“So she didn’t quite fit in your get-a-patch-of-land-and-live-quiet dream either.”
“Oh, she did,” he contradicted. “Said more and more people were beginning to work remote. Said you were actually more productive in a home office setting. Said she could find a kickass job anywhere, and if she didn’t, she’d open her own marketing company and kick that ass.”
“All right,” I said carefully, because I wasn’t getting the issue. She seemed pretty rad.
“With her, the fall was slower, but steadier. And in the end, along with knowing I was in love, I felt I’d given it the time to really get to know her. Understand her. Click with her. Most of all, I was convinced we were on the same page for life in that now, and in the future. So I got her a ring.”
Oh God.
“She accepted,” he continued. “So fuckin’ happy. Wanted a long engagement because she wanted a big thing for our wedding, and she wanted time to plan. I just had no idea what she intended to plan.”
And here we go, dammit.
“Would I be way out in left field to guess that what she was planning was how to finagle her fiancé into doing what she wanted, and that was something he didn’t want?”
His lips quirked. “No.”
Blech.
“What did this one want?” I asked.
“She wanted me to be an admiral in the Navy, like her dad.”
“Oh, Hutch,” I moaned.
“Yeah. But Danielle had style. She had finesse. Her moves were so fucking subtle, it was like a superpower. She’s planning our wedding. She’s planning our lives. She’s inviting me to her mom and dad’s dinner parties because they were her mom and dad’s dinner parties, so obviously, we’d go. But also, I’d meet all the right people. I just didn’t know that last part. And it didn’t matter who she talked to, she’d introduce me like, ‘This is Hutch Hutchison, he’s a SEAL.’ Always the emphasis on SEAL. Like she survived the training. Like she went on the missions.”
It was just a nuance of a change, but now I was playing with his fingers.
And Hutch continued speaking.
“She, her father, her mother, all of them were into pedigree. This meant my athletic scholarship and the fact I played Big 10 ball got trotted out a lot too. And I’m a proud Boilermaker, but she went to Brown, and whenever she slipped my college career into a convo, which was often, she’d say shit like, ‘Everyone knows, Purdue is like the Ivy League of the Midwest.’”
“Isn’t it?” I teased.
“It so is,” he replied.
We smiled at each other, and I so liked this was such a lighter conversation than the last one, no matter there was heavy in it.
“In the end, her mom and dad were in on it too. Or her mom was. Her father was an unknowing accomplice,” he went on. “I was the son he never had, so he wanted me out playing golf with his buddies. Her mom couldn’t have picked a more perfect man for her daughter. ‘Everything Hutch touches turns to gold. He played for Purdue. Basketball. Purdue basketball. He aced SEAL training. He was the first in his SEAL class to get a promotion. He’s just the best son-in-law a woman could ask for.’ She said shit like that all the time.”