Total pages in book: 145
Estimated words: 133975 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133975 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
“One of my favorites was the John Muir Trail. It’s over two hundred miles of pure wilderness. Honestly, Keys, you would love it. It took me three and a half weeks and a couple of resupplies, but it was unbelievably beautiful.”
“No doubt. And you did it alone?”
“I like going out alone. I hiked the Catskills and parts of the Appalachian Mountains. I’ve backpacked the Lost Coast and even up here and through the Cascades.”
She wasn’t bragging. She didn’t consider what she’d done extraordinary.
“Why do you like being alone?”
She lifted her head, her emerald eyes meeting his. “I don’t have to be anyone I’m not. I can just find my peace and be in a happy place, which for me is the wilderness. I’m surrounded by beauty and nature, and I don’t have to pretend.”
“Why’d you let me in when you don’t anyone else? Everyone in that town sees you as their friend, but you give them a mask. It’s a good one, friendly and sweet. You know their names, you know their lives, because you see them, but you don’t let them see you.”
She rubbed her face on his chest and let out a little sigh when she lay her head over his heart. “You wear a mask, Keys, and I recognized that right away because we’re alike in that. I saw you. You saw me. I knew you were aware that I was showing that disguise, and there was a kind of freedom, even euphoria, knowing one person in this world sees me. I hoped it would be the same for you.”
“I’m a fuckin’ monster, baby. You haven’t flinched once, and you know the real me. That man who is capable of killing five men in under a minute. The man who fucks everything that moves and then walks away, uncaring of whatever havoc he wreaks because he laid it out plain. Why trust that man?”
She traced his jaw with the pad of her thumb. “I realized we were completely incompatible, and I knew you saw it as well. That’s what makes you safe to trust. And me safe for you. I don’t have to worry you’re going to make a move on me, no matter how flirty you get, or how hard you get. And you don’t have to worry that I’m going to be clingy and want more of your attention than you want to give.”
Keys did his best not to react to that statement. She said it like she believed it. Was totally sincere. He had believed it as well. That falsehood had allowed him to become friends with her. To want to be with her. To give one person the real man, not the façade he’d built so carefully to conceal the worthless monster walking dead among the living, rotting from the inside out. He’d wanted to be seen. He even needed it. He wanted one person to know him. To validate his existence. She had done that, and he’d become addicted to her and the feeling of belonging to someone.
“Why do you think we’re not compatible?”
That magical laughter of hers slipped out. It was low, but it was there, sliding over him like the touch of fingers.
“Seriously? You have a type, Keys, you have to know that. You go for women with very abundant curves. Women with tons of experience. You like tall women. You’ve been coming here nearly six months, and in those months, I’ve seen you with them in the bar. They always are the same or close to it. You jerk your chin, they leave with you, you come back and don’t ever look at them again. You treat them as if they’re so far beneath you it’s kind of sickening. But what’s worse, they always want more. They follow you around practically begging, but you don’t deign to notice.”
She was telling an absolute truth about him. Before, he didn’t give a damn what anyone thought. He still didn’t, unless it was her. Lyric. Right in that moment, he didn’t like his sins laid out, not that she was being in the least judgmental. And that was one of the things he most loved about her. She wasn’t judgmental. She had never been with him. Not a single time. She just gave him that amused smirk and intriguing dimple along with a little shake of her head as if she’d reduced his blistering one-night stands to mere antics. When he would leave the bar after picking up a woman, before he walked out the door, he could never stop himself from scanning the bar to find her. He found he needed that genuine smile of hers before he fucked something that didn’t want or know him, only the dubious pleasure he provided and the right to say they’d been with him.
She always gave him what he needed. Seeing him. Seeing what she probably had thought at the time was the worst of him, and she still gave him that smile. The one she reserved for him. Open. Like sunshine. He was the darkest night, and she was the brightest day. She shared that light with him. Only him, and he’d come to count on it.