Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“Thanks.”
Then before the conversation can shift, I screech my chair back and head straight for the stairs.
In the bathroom, I take a long, restorative shower. The steam rises up, filling the room, and I linger there, letting the water beat down on me. It feels too good to get out, but the hot water doesn’t last forever. Eventually, I’m forced to yank the shower curtain aside and step out onto the rug. I wrap a towel around my middle and listen carefully. I always want to know where Nate is, but right now it’s imperative; I didn’t bring clothes in here with me.
Just as I’m about to step out into the hallway, Nate opens the door.
I startle and wrap the towel tighter around myself. “I’m almost done,” I say with a squeaky high voice.
He looks away, averting his eyes. “Sorry. I was coming up to get your jeans so I could try to mend them.”
“Oh.”
His kindness shatters something inside me, and I scurry past him, shut myself inside my room, sit down on the edge of my bed, and give in to big heavy tears. I don’t even really know why I’m crying, only that it feels too good to stop.
I inhale deeply, trying to quell the torrential downpour, but more tears fall, and it’s like a valve releasing in my chest. It’s the tension from last night, the anxiety and adrenaline from the bike accident this morning, the worry about how things will go with Nate, my situation with my family, my future with Andrew—it all comes out with those tears, everything I’ve held behind lock and key for so long.
I can’t actually remember the last time I cried. But now, I hiccup and sniffle. I swipe at my face and then cry some more, slow tears slipping down my cheeks as I stare out the window at the snow. I don’t even care that by the time I eventually get dressed and head downstairs, my face is likely splotchy, my green eyes red-rimmed.
When I come down, Nate is sitting at the kitchen table, a piece of thread between his teeth as he bites off a knot.
True to his word, he has my jeans in his hands and he’s sewing up the hole I made when I fell. He’s mending them carefully, his brows tugged together in concentration.
When he notices me standing in the kitchen doorway, he doesn’t look up. “It won’t be perfect, sorry. My mom taught me years ago, back when I was a teenager. She was sick of my brother and me acting like we couldn’t possibly learn to do something as simple as thread a needle. I think she called it weaponized incompetence.”
I smile. “Sounds like my kind of lady.”
His blue eyes peer up at me from beneath his brows, only for a moment. He sees the evidence of my tears and looks away, as if not wanting to gawk. “You would have liked her. She had hair kind of like yours. A lot darker red though. Yours is blonder.”
His use of past tense gives me pause.
“Did she pass away?” I ask, treading lightly.
He holds up the jeans to check the position of a stitch. “Ovarian cancer.”
I swallow and look down, my voice weak as I reply, “Sorry.”
“It’s been a long time now. Come see.”
He holds out the jeans for me, and though they still need a good wash, the hole near the knee is all but gone. He folded the denim in on itself in such a way that the stitches are neatly hidden inside. I don’t know exactly why him stitching up my pants is the hottest thing a man has ever done for me, but it is.
I clear my throat.
Even after only knowing Nate a short time, I know he’s tenderhearted and thoughtful. An image of him as a father leaps to mind unbidden. A little girl by his side, him patiently teaching her to read on the chair in front of the fire. He would be such a gentle dad, and the thought almost makes me tear up again.
I swallow and take the jeans. “Thanks. Should we get to work?”
He looks like he’s on the brink of saying something else. His lips part and his forehead crinkles, but then all at once he drops it. “Yeah, I’ll get us coffee.”
The rest of the day we spend at his kitchen table, working like we say we’re going to. Since my arrival in England, it’s the most productive day we’ve had. Nothing exists beyond the Cosmos trilogy. We don’t discuss last night. We don’t even look in the direction of the living room.
By the evening, I’m exhausted and I have a headache from keeping track of plot threads with him. His brain is on another level. The way he thinks, jotting down notes quickly, grabbing ahold of an idea and running with it while I try in vain to keep up. We drink more coffee than we should and tear through not one, not two, but three chocolate bars, but when we break for dinner, I feel a real sense of accomplishment—not only for helping him with his book but for managing to avoid the topic of us all day.