Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121210 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 606(@200wpm)___ 485(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
It’s mind-blowing how I can know someone so well—so fucking well—yet feel so far away from them.
Josie stops at Grandma Rose’s grave first, laying a bouquet of flowers on the headstone and sitting down in the grass in front of it for a spell. I can see her mouth moving, and I know she’s talking to Rose. And I imagine Rose is listening, even if her bodily presence isn’t with us anymore.
I rest my chin on the steering wheel as memories of nights with the two of them assault me.
Spaghetti noodle fights and warm cake fresh out of the oven. Firefly nights on the back porch with a good book read aloud by Rose while Josie and I got wine tipsy from the cheap stuff in a box. Movie madness bingeathons anytime either one of them was feeling under the weather and hot soup cooking on the stove for hours and hours anytime I was.
It was the best time of my life, so I guess it’s not a surprise I can’t stop wishing I were still in it.
Josie kisses the tips of her fingers and touches them to Rose’s headstone before climbing to her feet again, and I watch her like a love-sick creep as she walks two spots over to her dad. Again, she places the flowers and sits down in the grass, and I imagine her telling him how Norah’s just shown up in her life again and the million mixed ways she feels about it.
I can practically hear the words in my head as I imagine her telling him, I need a breather, the coping skill he was smart enough to give his girls from a very young age. I didn’t know her dad, Danny Ellis, personally, but with the way this town talks about him, I sure wish I had.
What Josie’s going through now is way more complicated than long-lost sisters, and I wish more than anything I could be a sounding board for her to talk through it. Instead, I watch patiently—and helplessly—as she uses the silent presence of her dad, and I pray it helps her. Because as painful as it is, I know damn well my showing up uninvited won’t.
My phone rings in my cupholder and startles me so badly I nearly jump through the roof. I try to grab it quickly and end up bobbling it, smacking it between my hands until I can finally catch it and put it to my ear.
“Hello?” I answer on a nervous whisper, despite the fact that Josie is completely occupied as she moves to her sister Jezzy’s grave now, more than a hundred yards away.
“Why are you whispering?” Bennett asks, his voice already annoyed with me.
There’s no way I’m telling him the truth, so instead, I find a way to gain my composure and raise my voice to a normal volume and cadence. “No reason. What’s up?”
“Summer was asking if you could come have dinner tonight. I told her I was vehemently opposed, but she insisted.”
I laugh. “You really are such a dick sometimes.”
“Yeah,” Bennett affirms, owning the title without shame. “I know.”
“Of course I’ll come.” These days, even with it being as hard as it is to see Bennett’s sweet girl in pain and her chronic condition progressing at an alarming rate, Summer is the highlight of my life. I love her so much. It’s only been seven years since Bennett showed up at my bar with her in a car seat, but the love I have in my heart for that little girl feels like it’s been growing for a lifetime.
“Figured,” he grunts out. “I told her you wouldn’t have any other plans.”
“What is this?” I scoff. “Shit on Clay Harris Day?”
Josie gets up from her spot in front of Jezzy’s grave and heads back in the direction of her car, and I duck down lower in my seat on instinct. I don’t think she can see me, but now that she’s actively facing this direction, I’m not so sure.
“I’m just trying to figure out if we’re both going to be a couple of single fucks for the rest of our lives or if it’s just me,” Ben says, and his responding sigh is both grumpy and amused. A dichotomy only Bennett Bishop can pull off at the same time.
Josie climbs into her car and backs out of the spot seemingly without noticing me, and I relax enough to scoot back up in my seat, rubbing at my face as I do.
“I think you know where I stand,” I answer honestly, hating the words and myself for being so fucking impossibly attached to a woman who doesn’t want me anymore. Who hasn’t wanted me for years. It’s a pathetic stance to take, but evidently, it’s a hill I’m willing to rot and die on.