Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
“Ah,” Luke said, nodding.
“Lyons-Erickson,” Liz said, peering at me. “Did your wife come in here once, kinda panicking about a broken window?”
“Yes,” I said, memory flooding back to me. “Chloe and Cooper were playing baseball out back and she slammed one right into one of our dining room windows.”
Liz nodded. “I remember. I helped get her in contact with a contractor to fix the window.”
“Well, today’s project is a lot more fun than that,” Luke said.
I was so grateful that he steered the conversation away from Rachel and toward bird feeder plans. I was pretty sure Luke had sensed that I was still a little uncomfortable thinking about my past, and I knew he didn’t like talking about his, either.
As they talked, I wandered a little, crossing over to the nursery section of the store and inspecting all of the different types of flowers. I scanned the names of the tags. Marigold, chrysanthemum, phlox.
Phlox. Why did that sound so familiar?
I looked at the small plant, which had purply-pink flower buds just starting to bloom. They were very pretty.
Phlox. That’s what it was—the name of the person in the BackOutThere group chat who had talked to me last night. I had no idea who it was—a man or a woman, somebody my age or totally different. But I’d liked the way they wrote. Like I could feel the heart behind every message. Like they really cared, even though they had no reason to.
I picked up the little plastic pot of phlox flowers and made my way back. As I approached, I overheard Luke and Liz talking in hushed tones.
“He is cute,” Liz was saying, her voice almost a whisper. They clearly didn’t know I was nearby. I froze behind a big shelf of doorknobs.
“I know he’s gorgeous, Liz.”
“So make a move,” she urged. “Nobody in Amberfield is that hot and unmarried.”
“Until recently, he was very married,” Luke said. “He isn’t looking for anything serious, and you know I’m not either.”
“Fuck that.”
“He’s a friend. And that’s all he’ll ever be.”
It should have been exactly what I wanted to hear. It was the truth, after all. I wasn’t ready for anything serious at all, and my life absolutely wouldn’t allow it.
But it still stung a little to hear it coming from Luke. No matter how impossible it was for us to be in a relationship, I was starting to enjoy the hell out of his company.
And I definitely still wanted to get close to him again. Very close. Coming inside of his mouth close.
Christ, I wanted him to fuck me, too.
The bell at the front of the store jingled, and Liz went up to help a customer. I snaked my way down the aisle of hardware and rounded the corner, running into Luke again.
“Are we in good shape for the bird feeder supplies?” I asked.
“Absolutely,” he said. “You find a flower you like already?”
“I want to plant some of these,” I said.
He looked down at the flowers and his eyes briefly went wide. “Phlox.”
“Pretty, right?”
He was stony-faced, like an animal in headlights, just for a moment. He snapped out of it, nodding once at me.
“I really like those. We can plant a few.”
That type of thing happened with Luke a lot. It seemed like he had a whole world of secrets and feelings deep inside, but he was too stoic to ever share them. It wasn’t that he was a closed-off person, but he definitely didn’t talk about any little thing that entered his mind, like I did.
Just like his tattoos, his expressions held those secrets, sometimes. And all I could hope was that piece by piece, I could start to know who Luke Warren really was.
For another twenty minutes we went around the whole store, gathering wood and screws and rivets and all sorts of things I didn’t know the names of. After Luke seemed satisfied with the feeder supplies, we got a bunch of flowers, too, filling the rest of our shopping cart with an array of beautiful colors. He went to the back of the store and got certain pieces of wood cut to various small sizes for the bird feeder.
While we were waiting to pay, I slid out my phone and snapped a photo of all of the flowers, sending it to the BackOutThere group.
>>LittleBit: Doing one thing a day that scares me. I’m definitely the only person who could find flowers and a DIY bird feeder “scary.”
I smiled as I sent the message to the group. I hoped that Phlox would be online today, and that maybe they’d even see that I was buying the flowers they were named after.
The moment we rounded the corner of my house and stepped into my backyard, Luke unbuttoned his flannel and tossed it off, revealing his tanned skin. My eyes went to his body like a magnet, seeing his tattoos in the bright light and his stupid, gorgeous muscles.