Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 148962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 745(@200wpm)___ 596(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148962 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 745(@200wpm)___ 596(@250wpm)___ 497(@300wpm)
Dry amusement darkens his voice. “You had no idea.”
He takes me by the hand and leads me to the club chair. When he sits, he pulls me onto his lap, settling me there so I can finish looking through the sketchbook. It’s been years, but our entire history is preserved between the pages. I’m fascinated by seeing our story through Romeo’s eyes, and I take my time with each drawing, studying the details.
“What was this one?” I ask, pausing on the image of me watching him draw on a napkin.
“It was the first time you smiled at me,” he confesses. “You were overwhelmed, so I drew something to distract you. It seemed to help.”
My heart squeezes in my chest, emotion clogging my throat as I nod and flip to the next page, noticing the date penciled across the bottom.
April 15th.
415—the numbers in his username.
“And this one?”
“That was when I knew I was in love with you.”
“Really?” I stare at the image of me feeding the stray cat that used to hang around our high school. It was the same year everything changed for us. “What made you realize it then?”
“One day, I sat there and watched,” he explains. “At least fifty other people walked past that stray cat and didn’t think twice about it. You were the only one who paid it any attention. I knew then that your soul was too pure for mine, but I couldn’t help myself. I wanted you.”
I reach up to touch his face. “I’ve never wanted you to be anything other than who you are.”
He turns and kisses my fingers before he nips at them, making me laugh.
I glance at the drawing again and let out a sigh. “I always wondered what happened to that cat. It just disappeared one day.”
“It became a fat, lazy housecat and lived a long, happy life.”
“How do you know?”
Amusement sparks in his eyes. “I pawned it off on my cousin Pepe.”
“What else have you done that I don’t know about?”
He arches a brow at me, and I can tell he’s not going to answer that.
“I understand April fifteenth now, but what about Eros?”
He buries his face in my neck and breathes me in, murmuring the words against me. “He loved Psyche from the shadows.”
I blink away the sting in my eyes as I’m overcome by the depth of my love for this man. I’m too choked up to say it, but he knows.
He always knows.
He holds me through the overwhelm, pressing soft kisses along my neck until I come back to myself.
We stay like that for a while, and admittedly, I could soak up his warmth all day. But I want to finish looking at his art.
I return my attention to the sketchbook, watching my life unfold in pictures. Memories unfurl, and they don’t feel so bittersweet anymore.
When I reach the day he won me that raggedy old teddy bear, I know I’m approaching the time that everything changed. As I trace over the lines, I’m in awe of how vividly he captured it, and how clearly he could tell I was in love with him even then.
After that, there’s a time jump, and I swallow as I realize there are four whole years missing. The drawings resume after he came back, but there’s a noticeable difference in perspective between the artist and the subject.
He captured me in various settings over the years—family dinners, lunches with the girls, reading, or sometimes just sitting alone with my thoughts. But the light seems to have disappeared from my eyes, and every smile looks forced.
It wasn’t just his assessment. My life had never felt as grim as it was without him in it. I thought I did a decent job of hiding it, but Romeo saw through my mask. He saw everything.
It explains why, when I turn the page, I find a drawing of the day I came to the island to meet Beppe. There’s nothing but pure happiness on my face as I cradle him in my arms, falling in love with him at first sight.
Romeo did that for me.
I squeeze my eyes shut and let out a shuddering breath. I don’t want to cry, but he really hit me in the solar plexus with that one.
“Hey.” He sets the book aside, then shifts me around so I’m straddling him, and we’re face to face.
“I’m okay.” I laugh because I’m embarrassed I keep getting emotional.
I can’t stop thinking about all the things he’s done for me that I didn’t realize, and I’m sure I’ve only scratched the surface. But as I’m contemplating it, there’s one thing that’s always bothered me. The sudden appearance of a college fund from my deceased grandfather never felt quite right. My mother didn’t even know that account existed, and even she said it was strange, considering I barely knew the man.