Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 71880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71880 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 359(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
“I guess they’re kinda cute together.” Dad’s words were almost lost over the noise of the engine. “I can’t wait to tell Peyton our boy is datin’ someone her age.”
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
“Please tell me that’s not true,” Adrien said quietly.
I chuckled, because I couldn’t help it, and I peered up at him. “Mom totally locked him down right outta high school.” Not that Dad had been that much older. “It’s a funny story. I’ll tell you one day. I was born a year later.”
Adrien closed his eyes and rested his forehead to mine. “It’s going to be a lifetime of age jokes, isn’t it?”
I smiled. “So we’re on the same page—that’s good. We’re aiming for a lifetime.”
Yeah, I was too fucking adorable for him to stay grumpy at. He opened his eyes again, and he smiled too. All sexy and crap.
Elliott Jones
I rolled onto my back and stared up at the ceiling.
With how little sleep we’d gotten, I should be fucking dead to the world right now. Instead, I was listening to Joel’s quiet sniffles—and the squeaky pipes that always protested in this corner of the building when someone was in the shower room.
I’d heard the return of Emerson, Mathis, Crew, the Finlays, and Mercier.
Danny had been there, waiting for his man.
The sun was about to rise.
My heart hurt.
I rubbed at the spot and screwed my eyes shut.
“I was talking about Blake, you stupid fuck.”
“Piper made it clear that if we got married, I’d get to adopt Blake.”
“That’s it, then?”
It was a blessing and a curse, wasn’t it? There would never be a “that’s it” where Joel was concerned. Which had given me years of heartache and countless bursts of rage. I’d felt too much and nothing at all. I’d lost memories at the bottom of one too many bottles, I’d closed myself off, I’d let myself turn into a bitter old bastard, and…then another year had gone by, and I’d had to see him at Blake’s birthday party. Once again, over and over, opening up the wounds.
Rinse and repeat.
“Yeah, just take whatever rooms you find empty,” I heard Danny say outside. “Come to bed, Em. We need an hour.”
I scrubbed a hand over my face and glanced over at Joel’s bed across the room.
“I was talking about Blake, you stupid fuck.”
Piper wasn’t the girl he couldn’t live without. It was Blake.
How tragically poetic—my wildest dreams coming true mere hours after I’d stood before him underneath a helicopter, cursing him out, grinning without humor, confessing I hated him because he should’ve fucking chosen me.
I was a coward. Verbally honest when he couldn’t hear me.
He sniffled again, followed by an unsteady breath.
I couldn’t take it any longer. Nothing between us was healed or fixed or…whatever. But I desperately needed a break from it all. I didn’t even envy the perfect love stories we were surrounded by, whether it was a brand-new one like Crew and Mercier, or one dating back twenty-five years like Emerson and Danny. I was just drowning in sorrow. Grief had a tight, painful grip on my chest, because that should’ve been Joel and me.
On the other hand…his love for Blake transcended our tragedy. She was my universe too, and she couldn’t have landed a better father than Joel. I only had to man the fuck up and tell him that.
Nerves and anxiousness wreaked havoc in my stomach for a few seconds, before I found the balls and sat up. I have to. I can’t take this anymore. My feet landed on the linoleum floor, and I got up from the creaky twin bed I’d slept in every time I’d been here.
A simple nightstand separated our beds, and I had just enough time to debate whether I should put on my sweats or if only boxer briefs were—oh, fuck it.
“Scoot.” I lifted his covers and got in next to him. “We can go back to hating each other when the sun is up.”
He cleared his throat and rolled over, visibly frazzled, and he pressed his back against the wall. Gaze disoriented and glassy.
“What’re you doing?” he croaked.
Wasn’t it obvious?
My heart beat a little faster as I got comfortable on my side and pulled him to me, and maybe he didn’t need an answer beyond that. He fused himself to my body, sending ripples of shivers through both of us. He was finally in my arms. He burrowed his face against my sternum, slipping an arm around my middle, and I held him tightly and kissed the top of his head.
“Don’t call me weak.”
“I’m not. I’m calling you a parent.” I took a deep breath and felt him relax against me. Fuck, I couldn’t describe how good it felt to hold him this close. To feel his skin on mine. “Get some sleep.”
He nodded minutely and exhaled.
The heaviest calm washed over me, unlike anything I’d felt in years. It silenced the chaos in my head and eased every ache in my body.