Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 43102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 216(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 144(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 216(@200wpm)___ 172(@250wpm)___ 144(@300wpm)
“What’s wrong with you?” Millie asks, her voice full of indignation. “You’re fucking amazing, Alex.”
“I’m—” I swallow hard, and now Dani’s reaching for my hand. “I’m broken.”
The last word is a whisper.
“And I’m afraid that when this honeymoon period is over and they come to their senses, they’ll be done with me and I’ll be alone, and they’ll still have each other.”
Yeah. I’m still not over that. Because it could happen.
“You’re not broken,” Billie says softly. “Honey, you’re so strong. You guys have overcome so damn much.”
“They haven’t witnessed me in a thunderstorm yet.” Just the thought of it has me fisting my free hand in my lap. “It’s bad, you guys.”
“Jesus,” Millie whispers and rubs her hand over her face. “I want Holden to burn it to the ground all over again. Your brother doesn’t do well with storms either, you know.”
Dani and I both shake our heads.
“But why?” Dani asks. “He didn’t have to be out there with us.”
“Because he knew you were out there, and he lives with a lot of guilt,” Millie replies. “But none of that makes you broken. We all have different degrees of baggage, you know. And if someone loves us, they love all of us, even the giant trunk baggage that costs a lot extra to check at the airport.”
I nod slowly.
“If it was one of them who went through this instead of you,” Skyla begins, “would you run away?”
“No.”
“There you go,” Billie says. “That’s your answer. Trust them. Trust yourself.”
I think of my two guys, so tender with me, so fucking sexy it makes my skin heat, and I know that I want to trust that it’ll work out.
Because at this point, a life without them sounds like pure torture.
“You’re right.” I toss my empty plastic glass in the trash. “I’m way too drunk to drive home. I’ll walk to the apartment.”
“I can drive you home,” Millie offers, but I shake my head.
“Actually, the walk sounds kind of nice, and I’ll just crash and head home in the morning.”
Home. It’s not really my apartment anymore, although I’ve been stubborn about giving it up. I know that’s been a sore spot for Adam and Gabe.
But I need a backup plan.
We exchange hugs and smiles, and then I’m walking the couple of short blocks to the apartment above the garage. Pulling my phone out, I type a quick message to my guys.
Me: Hi, sexy men! Book club was so fun! Drank too much, so I’m walking to my apartment. Will crash there and come to your place in the morning. Sweet dreams. xoxo
As I go to slip my phone in my pocket, my toe catches on an uneven crack in the concrete, and I go down hard, scraping my knees.
“Shit.”
If I were sober, this would hurt far worse.
Thank God I’m not sober.
I manage to get myself back on my feet and stagger the last hundred feet or so to the apartment and make my way up the stairs. After fumbling with the lock, I stumble inside, close the door, and open the windows. It’s not as hot as it was a couple of months ago, but the air is stale because I’ve hardly been here.
“Miss them,” I mutter to myself as I walk to the bedroom. I don’t bother taking off my clothes as I fall onto the bed and take a deep breath.
I’ll just sleep and go home tomorrow.
Chapter Fourteen
GABE
I’m already sitting in the hot tub behind the house when Adam walks through the back door, carrying two tumblers, each with two fingers of amber liquid. He passes me one before he joins me, but rather than lower into the water, he sits on the edge and dips his feet in.
Christ, he’s fucking sexy.
“See something you like?” he asks with a smirk before sipping his bourbon and then licking his lower lip.
“You know I do.” I sip my own and enjoy the way it burns going down. “As much as I hate Alex being gone, it’s good timing. We have to talk.”
He nods and slips down into the water, sitting across from me. Pulling my foot into his lap, he starts to rub the arch with his thumb, and I close my eyes, melting into his touch.
“You have such good fucking hands.”
He growls, and I look over to find him watching me with those hot gray eyes.
“Before I fuck you,” he says calmly, “we need to talk about our girl.”
“Right. Focus.” I drag my hand down my face. “We could just add on a good chunk of square footage for her. Or build her a she-shed out here. We have the acreage for it.”
Our home sits on two acres, and we could easily build her a little something of her own.
“That’s actually a good idea,” he says, running his fingertips up my calf. “Or if she wants to stay in the house, we can build the office-slash-library at that end of the building and add the square footage to the footprint.”