Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92466 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
For the rest of our silent clean-up time, I felt the weight of unsaid words on my back. They would likely stay there the entire two weeks. At least for my sake, I hoped so.
After there was nothing left to clean, no further distractions from each other, I turned to Nicole. “I should go put my stuff away.”
She wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. “I’m not sure if you noticed, but this house is small. There’s only one spare room. Not sure how we should handle that.”
My eyes widened as the logistics dawned on me: There wasn’t just one spare room—it only had one bed.
CHAPTER 4
NICOLE
I obviously hadn’t thought this situation through when I invited Atticus here. There was literally nowhere for him to sleep. I’d somehow thought the living room would be an option. But I’d underestimated how tiny that loveseat was. His long legs wouldn’t fit.
“You can sleep in the bed,” I told him. “I’ll take the loveseat in the living room.”
He laughed. “You might be smaller than me, Nicole, but no adult can comfortably sleep on that thing, not even you.”
“Well, what do you suggest, then?” I put my hands on my hips.
He scratched his chin. “I don’t know yet. I don’t have a solution. I’ll sleep on the floor in the living room for tonight, though.”
Wait. That won’t work. Neither of us could sleep in the living room. “You can’t,” I countered.
“Why not?”
“The living room is right outside Mimi’s bedroom. If she hears one of us out here, don’t you think she’ll wonder why we aren’t sleeping together?”
He grimaced. “I hadn’t thought of that. Shit.”
“But you especially can’t sleep in the living room. You’ll keep her up with your snoring.”
“My snoring is not that bad. I only do it once in a while, mostly when I drink a lot. And I haven’t had more than three drinks in one sitting in…years.”
Interesting. A three-drink maximum certainly hadn’t existed when we were together. “Okay, but when you do snore, it’s bad,” I told him. “Do you not remember the time you woke up the Mackey’s toddler who was sleeping in the apartment next door?”
“She was a light sleeper.” He chuckled.
“She told her parents she thought there was a bear in her room.”
“Dramatic.”
“A grizzly bear…” I laughed.
Atticus laughed, too. I’d forgotten how much I missed the sound of his laughter.
He went to fetch his suitcase and rolled it into the bedroom. “Anyway, I need to take a shower,” he said as he unzipped it. “It’s been a long day. We’ll figure it out.”
We’ll figure it out wasn’t a solution.
Atticus yawned and stretched. His shirt rode up a little, showcasing the ink on his torso, making me all too aware of the gorgeous body I’d craved every day for the years we’d been apart—a body that no longer belonged to me, but to the world.
“Be back,” he said.
I managed a nod. Take all the time you need. So I can breathe.
After Atticus disappeared down the hall into the bathroom, I sat on the bed and let out a long exhale. It was the first moment of peace I’d had since he’d gone for that walk before dinner. But only a few minutes went by before I yearned for his return. I knew this experience would be difficult, but I’d underestimated this painful longing.
Honestly, how did that man keep getting more handsome with age? When we’d divorced, Atticus was thirty-one. At thirty-four now, he was hotter than ever. He looked younger than his age despite the few gray hairs around his ears that probably only I noticed. Even those were damn sexy. Whenever I found myself thinking this way about him, I promptly reminded myself of all of the women he’d been with since our divorce. I’d heard stories from a friend who worked on a Delirious Jones tour, and there was plenty of other evidence as well. That snapped me back to reality real fast—at least for a moment. I had no right to be jealous—we weren’t together when any of it happened—yet it still hurt like a motherfucker.
The second Atticus came out of the bathroom, though, I was once again reminded how futile it was to try to forget my attraction to him. White towel hung over his neck, his sculpted chest glistened as beads of water traveled slowly down his torso to his carved V and into the tempting abyss beneath his shorts. The sad fact was, my ex-husband, Atticus Marchetti, would always be my dream man physically. He would always be the one I compared all others to. No amount of time apart from him had changed that.
Atticus ran the towel through his wet hair. “Did you come up with a magical solution to our sleeping issue?”
I stared up at the ceiling to keep from looking at him. “Yes. I plan to disappear into thin air, so we don’t have to deal with it at all.”