Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 108862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108862 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 544(@200wpm)___ 435(@250wpm)___ 363(@300wpm)
My nerves are eased at once.
Like this angry, clawing, vicious thing inside me just let go.
Fell away.
Gave in completely to Wyatt and his nurturing embrace.
I feel his other hand touch my chest.
I panic, grab it, and pin it to the wall, our lips still attached.
But it doesn’t scare Wyatt away. It makes him kiss me harder.
Oh, fuck me, what have I started?
The hand he put on my cheek slides to the back of my head, where he starts pulling our faces together even more. The kiss grows stronger. I hear him breathe and choke as he kisses me with more and more strength, nearly to the point that it hurts. I grab that hand too and pin it to the wall with the other.
Wyatt, against the brick, against my body.
Our faces at war.
I let go of his hands and cradle his head, losing my mind.
He gains footing and presses forward, causing me to stumble back until I’m against the porch railing.
Neither of us are in control.
What am I doing?
We pull away at the same time. Panting. Gripping each other’s faces. Staring. Confused.
“Diego …?” he whispers again.
I stare at him for five seconds longer.
Then let go, stumble off the porch, and race back to my house. I slam the door shut, back against it, and slide to the floor, fingers on my lips, staring ahead into the dark.
—7—
Wyatt
I can still feel Diego on my lips.
His powerful hands around my wrists, holding me to the wall.
Diego …
I have half a mind to follow him right on over to that house, to tell him it’s okay, to calm him down.
But maybe I don’t know what’s really going on here.
Maybe it wasn’t just a kiss to him.
It’s probably the first time I’ve actually been honest enough with myself to say: I do not truly know Diego Valdez.
Who he is.
What he wants.
What his life was like before he became my neighbor.
My not-quite-a-neighbor neighbor.
I pick up the roses and whatever else I dropped. Go back into the house.
And lock my door.
I do it so fast, I don’t even realize I’ve done it at first.
I can’t remember the last time I locked my door.
It feels wrong somehow.
Then I turn off the kitchen light and sink into a chair at the table, clinging to the handful of roses I dropped, to the tool in my other hand, staring at the ceiling fan in the kitchen as it slowly goes round and round.
Everything feels so far away.
Like my whole life’s a dream and I’ve woken up.
“What just happened?” I ask aloud.
No one answers.
For once, I have a problem I can’t talk to anyone about. I know right away this is something I need to keep to myself. No one can know. No one can help me. Like what just happened on that porch is news from some strange world I’ve never known before.
I have to solve this myself.
If “solving” is the right word for whatever just happened.
I spring from the chair and go to the window, as if some silly part of me expects him to be standing at his own waiting for me.
I see no one. Even though I know he’s in there.
I wish he hadn’t just run away like that. I hate leaving things unresolved. I don’t know what to do with my hands. Or the tingle on my lips he left me. Or my racing thoughts.
What now?
After finishing up with the roses—the only thing I can focus on, even though I nearly miss clipping my own fingers instead of the thorns a few times—it’s nearly four before I get myself in bed.
And barely seven when I’m up.
Only soft light touches the sky when I’m in my kitchen again.
Puffy eyes. Slouched shoulders. Staring at the house next door while waiting on the coffeemaker.
Unless he did it in the seven and a half minutes it takes for me to get cleaned up, dressed, and do my bathroom business, I don’t see Diego leave the house. I know he walks to work, Whitaker Auto just being a few blocks into town. The car in his driveway is totally inoperable, so I can’t use that as an indicator. He probably snuck out the second I was away. Or is still asleep. Or calling in sick.
I’m the sick.
I’m what he’s calling in.
But whatever he does or doesn’t do, I won’t know. He’s in that house, and I’m in this one.
I notice the orchid isn’t in the window anymore. I won’t read into that too much. I did advise him to pull it away from the front sill for indirect sunlight, didn’t I?
Not like he threw it away or tossed it into his backyard to fend for itself, done with the poor thing.
Maybe I should call Lottie.
No. Terrible idea. What the hell? That’s worse than going over there to face him myself. And what would I say? Not like I can tell her what her precious nephew just did to me.