Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 90951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
I watch her walls go up with a sinking feeling as she pulls fully out of my arms. She settles back against the pillows, her hands resting on her belly in a protective way that makes me regret every choice I made between Elly’s shower and when Beatrice left town all over again.
“I mean, we obviously have some talking to do,” she adds, her voice kind but guarded.
But that’s okay. She was happy to see me. More than happy.
There’s still hope, and as long as that’s true, I refuse to give up on her. On us.
“I’d love to talk,” I murmur.
She motions toward the chair in the corner. “Then, sit. Take a load off. Charlotte’s on her way here, but she was in Mobile for a conference and won’t be here for a few hours. We have some time.”
I nod. “Good. Time with you is all I want, Bea. It’s all I’ve wanted for months. I’m so glad you’re home.”
Something flickers across her face—there and gone before I can read it—that makes me think that might not have been the right thing to say. But she doesn’t change her mind about the chair.
She just watches as I pull it over and sit, and for now…
Well, for now, that’s enough.
Chapter Ten
BEATRICE
My body is a dumbass.
A tingling, giddy, so-relieved-to-see-Blue-that-she-melted-into-that-hug-without-a-second-thought dumbass.
Blue isn’t my safe place.
Blue is complicated. Fraught. He’s the guy who sent me a check and a brush-off letter, before ghosting me for five months, for fuck’s sake.
But he also smells like evergreen needles and sexy spices, and I really wish I were still pressed against his chest, breathing him in. I’m considering asking him for another hug, just to banish the last of the post-accident scaries, in fact, when he says, “Good. Time with you is all I want, Bea. It’s all I’ve wanted for months. I’m so glad you’re home.”
The words land like a record scratch.
Pardon me?
Excuse me, sir?
Months, you say?
Months?
I fight to keep my eyes from bulging out of their sockets as he pulls the chair in the corner over to my bedside, refusing to be distracted by the way his giant hands dwarf the armrests. Or the perfect amount of dark hair on his corded forearms. Or how his eyes meet mine with that captivating new openness I glimpsed on the television screen when there was still an ocean between us.
So, he’s open now, is he?
Open to what?
Open to continuing to ignore me until I’m in a hit-and-run accident, he happens to catch on the news while doing a bit of woodworking? Open to forgetting I exist until I’ve flown thousands of miles to ensure he’s okay, only to suddenly become the one who is not okay? Not even a little bit?
The audacity!
The breathtaking audacity of this man to sit there covered in sawdust and “so grateful for this chance” vibes, looking like some kind of lumberjack fantasy, when he’s been a complete turd burglar.
Five months of silence. Five months of wondering how I could have been so wrong about someone, again.
After Kai, I thought my days of hallucinating goodness into the hearts of shitty men were over. The rose-colored glasses were off, baby. Ripped off, thrown to the ground, and crushed under my ex’s Doc Martins as the man who’d promised to love me forever did his best to ruin my life and my career.
Once the smoke from that interpersonal fire cleared, I was so sure, so certain that I’d never be fooled again.
But Blue completely pulled the wool over my eyes.
I really thought he was what he pretended to be. I thought he was a Zen Master Artist-Athlete who would always choose the kindest road, even if it wasn’t the one most traveled.
I’m not angry that he opted out of surprise fatherhood. I’m angry at the spineless, cowardly, dude-bro-who-can’t-deal-with-the-consequences-of-his-actions-in-person way that he did it. I’m angry that I went from one of his closest friends to a pesky pregnant wench he couldn’t pay off fast enough, so quickly that it made my head spin. I’m angry that not once in five months did he text to say he was sorry, or that he missed me, or even ask why I hadn’t cashed that fucking check.
I’m angrier than I realized until this very moment, in fact…
How dare he pretend to be so grateful for my time?
He could have had my time. He could have had all my time, every second, every breath, maybe even for the rest of our lives.
I was obviously drunk on tequila and orgasms that night, but by the time Blue came inside me on his kitchen table, I was positive he was the reason I’d wasted over a decade in a shitty relationship. Fate was just biding its time, ensuring I was single when I met this incredible, hard-loving, hard-fucking man who was about to make all my romantic dreams come true.