Total pages in book: 87
Estimated words: 83085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83085 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 277(@300wpm)
I held on tight to him, not letting him go. “I don’t ever want to deny you. I spent my life thinking I wouldn’t have this, wouldn’t have someone to love. Now that I do, I won’t ever hide it.”
“Christ, I don’t know how I deserve you.”
“Get the hell out of here, you two,” Miguel said. He’d fit in with us so well, so quickly. “I’ll close the bar.”
I sure as shit wasn’t going to turn down that offer. “Let’s go home,” I told Josh.
“This belongs to you. He fell out of your pocket. I took him with me for support.” He gave me my turtle back. I’d been upset when I realized it was gone.
“Took him with you? Where did you go?”
“I’ll tell you at home.”
“Okay.” It was a rushed goodbye to everyone. Josh and Kellan hugged, Josh whispering something in his ear. I knew they would eventually have to talk.
“I’m going to leave my car here. I don’t want to be away from you,” he admitted when we got outside, and all it did was make me love him more.
“I don’t want that either.”
We didn’t talk in the truck, like we both knew it wasn’t the time and we wanted to wait until we got home.
Even though the drive took only a couple of minutes, it felt like an eternity before we got to Josh’s house.
We got out and went straight for each other again, hugging and kissing and stumbling our way to his door. When we got inside, he cupped my face. “Christ, I love you. I want to keep saying it over and over. I didn’t think I’d ever…”
Josh didn’t think he’d ever have this again.
I didn’t think I’d ever have it at all.
“We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?”
“We’re a sexy-as-fuck couple, is what we are.”
I chuckled the way he always made me do. “I love you too, but I need to know.”
Josh motioned toward the couch. We went over and sat down. He closed his eyes, and I felt it then, the pain radiating off him, but when he opened his lids to look at me, I saw the resolve too, the clarity.
“I went to see Doug. I needed to tell him about you…and I needed to tell him goodbye.”
“Jesus, Josh, I—”
“Please, let me. I need to get this out.”
I nodded, and he continued.
“I’d promised him I wouldn’t fall in love again. I know that sounds stupid, but it didn’t feel right, loving someone else. I didn’t anticipate you. You’re my Grumpy G…my Griffy.”
I rolled my eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”
“Ridiculously in love with you. I wouldn’t have stopped it if I could, and I don’t want to stop it, Griff. You found your way into my heart, and that shit won’t go away. I don’t want it to go away. Nothing makes sense to me the way you do.”
My heart stuttered, then soared. “Nothing makes sense to me the way you do either. My whole life I wondered if something was wrong with me, if a part of me was broken, but it wasn’t. It was just waiting for you, waiting for the time to be right.”
“The time is right now. It was…it was hard to tell him. I know that sounds crazy—”
“It doesn’t. Not at all.”
“I feel like he heard me. I want you to meet him. You would have liked each other. I, um…I held his hand and just talked to him, told him all about you, and it was healing. Doug would want me happy. You make me happy.
“When I left his room, Annie—his mom—was there, and she told me she knew. Since the beginning, she knew about us, and she told me it was okay. She told me Doug knew how much I loved him, and that he’d want me to move on.”
His eyes filled with tears, and I was there, wiping them away as they fell.
“She dreamed about him. The night you told me you loved me, she dreamed about him, and he said he loved her, that he loved me, and it was time to say goodbye. Then she came to the facility, and I was there, Griff. How does that happen?”
My pulse was thudding heavily in my ears. I couldn’t wrap my brain around this, but somehow, somehow it felt right too. “He was waiting for you to be ready.” I would have never believed something like that until that moment.
“She’s going to…in the new year, she’s going to let him go. I can’t be there for that, but I was thinking, would you go with me beforehand? To say goodbye again? I want you to meet him and—”
“Jesus, yes. Of course. Anything. Come here.”
Josh came easily, and I pulled him into my arms. We lay down, me on my back, Josh with a leg thrown over me and his head on my chest. I held him, the two of us hardly fitting on the couch, but that was okay. I didn’t want any space between us anyway.