Total pages in book: 19
Estimated words: 17988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 90(@200wpm)___ 72(@250wpm)___ 60(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 17988 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 90(@200wpm)___ 72(@250wpm)___ 60(@300wpm)
"I was just—"
"Leave."
"Dude, I was just talking—"
"Now."
The guy looks at Tate, but she's staring at me like she doesn't recognize me, eyes wide, mouth slightly open, forehead scrunching.
He gets the message. Grabs his beer and moves to a table on the other side of the room.
Tate stands up slowly but says nothing. That's worse than yelling, worse than throwing her beer at me. She just stares for three long seconds, then reaches into her pocket and drops a ten-dollar bill on the bar before walking out.
The door closes behind her with a soft click.
Jason whistles low from behind the bar, miming a slow hand clap. "Well, you fucked that up."
Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.
The rain started while I was inside. That fast rain that comes from nowhere, pelts down hard and turns everything slick and gray. Tate's already halfway across, jogging, one hand on her head, heading toward her cafe, and her clothes are soaked through, hair plastered to her forehead.
"Tate."
She doesn't turn around.
I catch up to her at her door. She's fumbling with keys, hands shaking—from cold or anger, I can't tell.
"Tate, stop."
"Go away, Tom."
"We need to—"
"I said go away."
She gets the door open and walks inside, but I follow.
The space is dark except for the ambient streetlight through the front window, painting everything in weak amber light. Boxes everywhere—stacked against walls, clustered in corners.
Tate whirls around to face me.
Her face is furious. Soaked. Beautiful in a way that makes my chest tight.
"What the hell was that?"
"He was hitting on you."
"So?"
"So, you're mine."
The words come out before I can stop them. Tate stares.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me."
"I'm not yours, Tom. You don't get to … y-you threatened that guy for talking to me!"
"Yes."
"That's insane!"
"Probably."
Tate's mouth opens, closes, and opens again. No sound comes out. She's speechless, and I'm not backing down.
The rain pounds against the windows, but I swear I can hear my heart galloping.
She runs her fingers through her wet hair. "This is exactly why I lied! This right here. Because you're a jerk sometimes, Tom. You make assumptions. You decide things without asking. You—"
"What assumptions?"
"The memorabilia! The posters, the bar stools, all of it—you saw them going in, and you just decided I was opening a dive bar to compete with you!"
"YOU told ME you were opening a dive bar."
"Because you already decided! You assumed. You came over here with that look on your face, and I panicked!"
My brain stutters. "What look?"
"The 'this is my block, and I want you out' look!" She paces, soaked and furious, shoes squeaking on the unfinished floor. "Those things were my Nana's. My grandmother, who died and left me everything she had, because I was the only one who visited her every week for ten years. She was a groupie in the sixties and seventies. Followed bands around. Collected memorabilia. Had the best stories I've ever heard."
The air goes out of me. "She left you a vintage Fender and three-hundred-dollar beer signs?"
"She left me her life, Tom. Everything she loved. And I wanted to use it because it meant something to me, but you—" Tate's voice breaks. "You didn't ask. You just assumed."
She's right. I did exactly what she said—saw the stuff, made assumptions, decided she was competition without asking a single question. Decided she was a threat right there and then.
"I didn't know."
"Of course you didn't know! You didn't ask!"
We're yelling now. Both soaked. Both furious. Arms flapping. Fingers raised.
"And this morning—" Tate starts.
"Don't."
"You can't just—"
"I said don't."
"We need to talk about it!"
"There's nothing to talk about."
"Nothing?" Tate's laugh is sharp, dangerous. "You had your face between my thighs, Tom. That's not nothing!"
Fuck me. The air changes again—shifts from angry to something else, something darker and heavier and inevitable.
Suddenly, Tate is just inches away, breathing hard, pulse jumping in her throat.
My eyes drop to her mouth, almost like I can't help it. Because I want to kiss her again. I want to taste her for the second time.
I don't remember moving, but one minute, we're standing close, and the next, the space between us disappears. My mouth is on hers, and she's kissing me back with the same fury she was yelling with, all teeth and heat and her hands fisted in my wet shirt.
I walk her backward until her back hits the wall beside the window—the shadowed area where the streetlight doesn't reach, where no one can see us unless they're standing right outside looking in.
My hand tunnels through her wet hair. Her leg comes up around my hip without me asking for it.
"Mine," I say against her mouth.
She bites my lip hard enough to sting. "Prove it."
Wet jeans are a nightmare to remove. I get hers open and shove them down along with her underwear. My jeans and boxers follow—belt, button, zipper, down to my thighs, because that's all the patience either of us has.