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)
I pull Josie forward by her elbows and wait for the magic words, and the judge doesn’t disappoint by making me wait. “You may kiss now! Congratulations!”
It’s the kiss to end all kisses, and I could swim in it forever if the judge weren’t staring at us expectantly. As it is, he extends his arm for us to leave, and I take my win where I can get it and get the hell out of there…with my wife.
My wife.
We damn near skip our way through the whole courthouse and out the door, down the steps, and over to my truck, and after a few more shared kisses, Josie goes to take out her phone. I know she’s eager to share the news, and I am too. I’m just eager not to share her first.
“Don’t call anyone yet.”
“Clay, I just want to call Grandma Rose. Everyone else can wait.”
I shake my head. “She can wait too, baby.” When her eyebrows draw together, I kiss the wrinkle away. “Not forever. Just for a couple hours. Just long enough for us to have a little honeymoon first.”
“You planned something?”
“Oh, baby, I’ve planned a lot of things.”
And I can’t wait to show them to her. My Josie. My wife. My forever.
After The Moment: Part 3
The History That Can’t Repeat Itself
23
Josie
Tuesday, August 3rd
I drive in silence, tears welling in my eyes despite my refusal to let them fall. In my periphery, I glance over at my sister, who sits quietly in the passenger seat, her dazed eyes toward the window.
Three days ago, Norah showed up at my door. I didn’t know why, but now I do. She was trying to seek a safe space away from her life in New York, but in less than seventy-two hours, a shitstorm of epic proportions has managed to follow her all the way to Red Bridge.
She was engaged, and a week prior to her landing on my doorstep, she left her fiancé at the altar.
It’s a fucking tragedy that we know as much about each other’s lives as complete strangers.
I glimpse over at her again, and she anxiously digs her teeth into her bottom lip.
She’s a mess. Distraught. Confused. Scared. And all of it’s valid.
This morning, her ex-fiancé, Thomas Conrad Michael King III, boldly showed up at my coffee shop while Norah was the only one there, to accost her. He threatened her both mentally and physically, and it makes my soul shudder at the thought of what she went through during her relationship with that man. It’s always worse behind closed doors. Always. And I can’t believe my very own baby sister found herself trapped inside.
Hell, it took Bennett Bishop stepping in to stop her violent ex from dragging her to his car. And even his intervention didn’t end it. Eventually, Sheriff Pete had to get involved too.
The streetlights down Main Street glimmer, but all I can see is the vision of her scared face when I got back to the CAFFEINE this morning—and the gush of white milk mixing with blood all over the floor. Of her shaky, ashen face as they put Thomas in the back of the police car. Of her uncertainty as Pete explained her options for pressing charges when we were at the police station this afternoon. Of how scared that motherfucker made her.
God, what has become of us?
The history between Norah and me is…rocky at best. It’s been five years without speaking, and I convinced myself I was doing what was right.
Five years of telling myself things to make myself feel better and to excuse away the duty I had as an older sister to get in the middle of a situation that was largely bad for me. I can’t save her. She’s happy. Our mother favors her enough to keep her safe. She doesn’t want my help and doesn’t value me as a sister either.
Five years of poison from our mother, seeping into Norah’s every innocent crevice, uninhibited by any other family who cared.
I convinced myself I was doing the right thing with hollow arguments out of my own necessity, and now, because of my selfishness, my twenty-six-year-old sister has been through more in a quarter of her life than any woman should ever have to go through. I want to reach out and take her hand—to provide some sort of solace—but the fact is, there’s not much comfort to be had when the man you were supposed to marry puts his hands on you in anger, threatens your very existence, and does it with the support of your own mother.
That’s right. Our mother is the one who told Norah’s ex where she was.
The neon sign on The Country Club shines through the windshield as I make the final turn on our way out of downtown, and I swallow thickly around memories of Clay and me that never seem to go away. Of gentle touches and genuine affection—of a life of mostly perfect moments outside of tragedy.