Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 128801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 128801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 644(@200wpm)___ 515(@250wpm)___ 429(@300wpm)
A long silence passed between them before she glanced down for a beat, wary when she looked back at him. Sadness flashed in her eyes. “What about you?”
He roughed an agitated hand through his hair. “You know, just living.”
If that’s what it could be considered.
Her gaze narrowed, studying him from over the counter. “We miss you, you know?”
He pushed out a heavy sigh. “Things change, yeah?”
“Yeah, in ways I wished they didn’t.” Then she cleared her throat and sent him a big smile that panged through his chest. Because it was real and genuine and so much like the little girl he’d once known yet so different.
Regret slammed him hard.
She’d been like a sister to him.
More than that, even.
Someone who’d just gotten him the same way as he’d thought he’d gotten her.
And now, they had all that fucking time lost. An ocean between them. No way to cross it or to get back to the way things had been. He didn’t know a thing about her anymore, and that was all on him.
“Would you like something?” she finally asked.
“Uh…yeah…sure,” he mumbled, moving through the awkwardness to the display and peering inside. It was stocked with a ton of different types of cookies, chocolate chip and sugar and everything in between. Elaborately decorated cupcakes. Pies and cakes. One of them caught his eye, a dark chocolate cake already cut into slices and set on plates. It had three pieces of white chocolate candy in the shape of stars decorating each.
“I’ll have one of those.” He pointed at it through the glass.
Dakota giggled a shy sound and pulled one out, and she carefully placed it into a white pastry box. She closed the lid and carried it to the register where he waited. She surprised him when she leaned a little his direction, her voice held low. “It looks like you still have good taste, Ryder Nash. That’s my one recipe in that case.”
“Really?” Satisfaction pulled at him.
“Yeah.” Her smile was soft, and he thought some of that understanding they used to share was still there. And it reminded him that maybe he wasn’t fully gone. That maybe he could find his way back.
“What do I owe you?” he asked, digging into his back pocket for his wallet.
She bit down on her lip and pushed the box toward him, her words a whisper, “Love is on the house.”
He kept seeing her after that.
By mistake or on purpose, he wasn’t sure.
He just…wasn’t hiding the way he usually did. He was coming out in the light of day, and he wasn’t fucked up as much because the last thing he wanted was for her to see him in that state.
He’d hung out with Cody and Ezra a couple of times, too.
Normal.
Like old friends.
Close to the way they used to be, but a discomfort remained, like they didn’t quite know what to say to each other.
Or maybe they just didn’t fully trust him.
It wasn’t like he could blame them.
He was still in deep, chained, even though there was no chance that they knew the circumstances or the depth. He figured they could just feel the slime radiating off him, the corruption seeping from his pores.
But he didn’t feel it so much as he entered that tiny bakery on the corner, the scent of sugar and vanilla smacking him in the face.
Or maybe it was the way his stomach tightened a fraction when he found Dakota on the other side of the counter, smiling back. “And to what do I owe this pleasure?” she teased. Easy the way she’d become. The way they used to be.
“I was just passing by and smelled something good.”
“Just passing by, huh?”
He shrugged, all nonchalant as he strolled in deeper. “It is a small town.”
“Not that small of a town.” A smirk hinted at the edge of her mouth, and he couldn’t help but let go of a full one, and he pulled the big gift bag out from behind his back and set it on the counter. “I heard it’s someone’s birthday.”
Surprise jutted across her face, and redness splashed her cheeks. “You remembered.”
“Of course, I remembered, Dakota. How could I forget about you?”
Except for all those years that he had.
Guilt clawed at his throat, and fuck, he wished he could take it back.
She stared across at him. There was something new that hummed in the familiarity. An energy that buzzed. Or maybe it was just the faint flickering of joy that had started to shimmer inside him. Something that had been missing for so long that now it felt foreign.
“Are you going to open it, or what?” he pressed, nudging the bag her direction.
She exhaled before she grinned and rushed to toss out the tissue paper, then a frown was forming on her brow when she pulled out what was tucked inside.