Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 130307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130307 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 652(@200wpm)___ 521(@250wpm)___ 434(@300wpm)
Chloe — who had barely talked to me in more than a week.
Since that night in the bathtub, she’d pulled away from me.
It was the smart thing to do. It was what we both needed — namely me. Clearly, I was barely holding onto the reins of our arrangement. But somehow, I’d managed to keep myself on the other side of that line we’d drawn. I hadn’t stayed that night. I hadn’t given in.
Because of that, I’d completely lost her.
I felt it in the way she could barely look at me the next morning, at how every smile she gave me now was weak and lined with a sheen of pain.
In the process of saving myself, I’d hurt her.
It was so clear, so evident, and yet I couldn’t figure out what the hell to do about it.
She wanted this, too. She’d told me as much. I don’t date. I don’t want friends. We were on the same page. Where my reason stemmed from Jenny, hers came from her family, from her desire to be independent and to make them proud of her and her decisions.
But suddenly, it didn’t feel like our reasons were so clear. It didn’t feel like they made fucking sense — not anymore.
I was frozen, unclear in my own feelings and unsure of my next move. I felt her pulling away more and more each day. We didn’t flirt anymore. We didn’t touch. We barely spoke — just enough to communicate about Ava.
I missed her so badly, even when we were in the same room.
And yet I didn’t have the fucking right to.
It didn’t matter that she’d agreed to just sex. I couldn’t call her on that, couldn’t hold her to it — not after all that had transpired in the months since we’d made that agreement.
We both knew it was more than that now.
The difference was that it seemed like she could face that fact — and all I knew how to do was run from it.
Florida was already warming, the promise of a brutal summer evident in the humidity making my hair stick to my neck as I sat on the park bench and watched Ava playing on the slide with Chloe. It was a rare Sunday off — one very much needed — and it was too beautiful of a day to be stuck inside.
It was Chloe’s suggestion to use the day to get back to our mission of introducing Ava to Jenny through things she loved to do. Immediately, this park had come to mind.
Jenny used to come here at least once a week. It was her favorite place to escape from the rush of the world, to take a moment to breathe. The park was shady and quiet, lined with giant oak trees garnished with Spanish moss and a creek that bubbled as background noise just past the picnic benches. It had been more run down when we used to come here together — a forgotten oasis that the local residents didn’t have time or money to improve.
It had changed in the last five years of my absence, though. The old playground had been updated, the picnic tables and gazebos restored, and a new walking and biking trail had been made to run along the creek that eventually led to a river three miles north. The improvements meant the park was busier now, but it was still as gorgeous as ever.
I hid under the brim of my hat and behind the dark frames of my glasses. So far, no one had bothered us. Then again, the dozen other people we shared the park with seemed to be in their own little world, too. There was a family of four eating lunch by the creek, a couple running the path with their dog, a mom watching her kids just a few years older than Ava as they threw a Frisbee.
“Daddy, look!” Ava called, and I snapped my attention from where my eyes were losing focus in the trees to her just in time to watch her fly down the slide on her stomach. She giggled the whole way down, somersaulting at the bottom and popping up with wood chips stuck in her hair and all over her clothes.
“Perfect ten!” I called, grinning, but my heart was racing a bit after watching that tumble. “Be careful, okay?”
“I am!” she promised, and then she was running over to Chloe, who smiled down at her and said something as she ruffled her hair. They were best buds now, two peas in a pod.
When Ava ran off again, Chloe walked toward me, her hands in the pockets of her powder blue sundress and her eyes on her white sneakers. She’d pulled her short hair half up today, and the breeze blew the strands this way and that as she crossed the park.