Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68524 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
My fingers lingered in his hair as both of us paused, watching each other… as if we were waiting for something to happen.
My gaze slid from his eyes to his mouth. He licked his lips.
I really wanted to kiss him. The thought of it made my heart race.
But in the next moment, he swayed a little and grabbed onto my sweatshirt, as if he was trying to stop himself from toppling over. My breath caught, and I blurted, “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. Just a little tired.”
I picked him up, cradling him in my arms as I carried him to the bedroom. “I can see why. It’s been a long day.”
“It’s like, eight-thirty,” he grumbled. “I’m not ready for bed.”
“Nobody said you had to go to sleep, but I’m tired, too. Let’s relax and watch some TV.”
“Can we have some snacks?”
“Of course. Want some popcorn?” I was glad his appetite was returning.
Collie nodded. “And something sweet, maybe?”
I put him down on the bed and said, “Sure thing. I’ll be right back.”
I hurried to the kitchen, any thoughts of a kiss pushed to the back of my mind. This wasn’t the time to start anything. That had just been made crystal clear to me.
A few minutes later, I returned with a big bowl of popcorn, a pack of red licorice, and two cans of soda. He was propped up by a huge mound of pillows, and he’d wrapped himself in his fuzzy purple blanket, so only his face was sticking out. “I don’t mean to sound ungrateful, since you’ve been springing for all the groceries,” Collie said, “but do you think we can get some real soda next time, instead of this weird organic stuff that tastes vaguely like topsoil?”
“Real soda is bad for you.”
“But so is candy, and you agreed to buy that.”
“It’s a balancing act,” I said, as I put his drink and the candy on the nightstand and handed him the bowl. “Healthy soda and candy is less bad for you than regular soda and candy.”
“My mind knows you’re right. My taste buds have zero fucks to give.” As I circled around to my side of the bed and kicked off my shoes, he asked, “Does this popcorn have butter on it, or is it a big, giant air popped bowl of depression?”
“It’s buttered and salted. I’m not a monster.” I climbed onto the bed and rested my hand on the stuffed gator between us.
“That’s good at least.”
He clicked the remote and brought up a half-watched episode of a trashy reality dating show. “It’s my turn to pick what we watch,” I reminded him. “You picked last night.”
“You know you want to watch this. Quit acting like you’re not dying to see if the fuck boy ends up with the girl with fake boobs.” With that, he shoved a huge handful of popcorn into his mouth.
“You need to be a lot more specific. That’s every couple on this show.”
Despite myself, I ended up totally engrossed in the episode. A few minutes later, the cat jumped onto the bed and curled up at our feet. Collie grinned and muttered, “We need T-shirts.”
“What?”
He glanced at me. “I didn’t mean to say that out loud. But since you asked, I was just thinking we need to have T-shirts made for our little, two-man broken hearts club.”
“I don’t think I’m following.”
“In my case, my heart was literally broken and needed to be repaired. But yours was broken too, figuratively speaking, by your ex. They’re different situations, obviously, but somehow the remedy for both is pretty much the same thing. We both needed to give ourselves time to heal, and we definitely needed this self-care.”
“I thought self-care meant drinking enough water, and exercising, and eating balanced meals…”
“It can also mean being nice to ourselves, and maybe a little indulgent. Junk food, cuddling up with a cat and a fuzzy blanket, and binging trashy TV shows all definitely qualify as forms of self-care.”
I wanted to argue that I was over my breakup. It was ancient history, with a year separating me from the bomb Bruce had dropped onto my life.
Except… maybe Collie was right. Maybe I was still healing. And maybe this was helping, because right now I felt incredibly good.
13
Collie
I was pretty sure Miller had almost kissed me. We’d been standing face-to-face in the den the night before, and we’d had this… moment. He was looking at me, and I was looking at him, and then his gaze had shifted to my mouth.
That meant he’d been thinking about kissing me. Didn’t it? Or maybe that was wishful thinking on my part…
I’d never know what might have happened, because I’d started to feel a bit unsteady as I stood there waiting for him to do something already. I’d swayed, just barely, but that was it. The bubble popped, and he carried me to bed—not so we could bone, but so I could rest. Talk about frustrating.