Total pages in book: 177
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 173392 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 867(@200wpm)___ 694(@250wpm)___ 578(@300wpm)
I push through the back door of the empty restaurant, the night air cool and loud with life.
“I also want to talk to Mariette about extending hours starting in the spring,” she says behind me.
“Whatever you want.”
It’ll cost more to stay open longer, and we’ll need a bigger staff, but let her see if she can make it worth it. I’ll know in the first month.
She disappears off somewhere, and I look over, seeing Torres heading into the bar with his arm around his wife.
“Macon, come on!” he calls out.
I flash him a dirty look, to which he laughs and heads inside. I’ve never been fun at bars. That’s what he knows.
But if I go in there, I’ll get drunk. And missing her will be unbearable.
Gabriela Minor kicks a soccer ball across the street with her six-year-old little sister. I stop, checking the time on my phone.
It’s after ten. I look at her. She looks up at me.
Then she claps her hands. “Okay, bedtime!” she tells her baby sister.
She takes the girl’s hand and helps her kick the ball back to their house. I move along, toward mine.
I should be proud of her. I know it sucks to have to babysit all night while your mom works, and most fourteen-year-olds just want to get the kids in bed so they can watch TV and be left alone. She plays with her sibling like I never did with mine. She’s a good kid.
I hear the music before I even step inside my foyer, but as soon as I do, I shut off the playlist on the TV and toss the remote back onto the table. Trace sits up on the couch, and I think there are girls on each side of him. I don’t look. “Move it to the pool,” I tell them all.
I head into the kitchen, and Dallas leaves with someone as soon as I enter. I don’t see Army. He’s probably upstairs with Dex.
Filling a glass with water, I drink it down, refill, and drink more.
The lights in the pool out the window glow under the water, and in no time, someone is cannonballing into it, the lawn chairs quickly filling up as the house empties.
This is the time of day I used to love. Family in bed. House quiet.
World in bed. World quiet.
It feels like forever ago that she’d get in her pajamas and grab her pillow, but then she wouldn’t use it. I was her pillow those nights she slept in my room.
Someone glides into the kitchen, their reflection creeping up behind me in the window.
I turn my head, looking down at Summer, a server at Mariette’s. Krisjen trained her. Blond hair, early twenties, long tan legs in shorts, and her feet in skates. I stare down, my heart pumping harder in my chest.
“I was going to track down Krisjen to return them, but they fit me.” She rolls her feet back and forth as she holds the counter behind her. “We should all wear them.”
Her arm brushes mine, and her eyes are filled with heat as she looks up at me, waiting.
She licks her lips and cocks her head, and if I don’t look at her face, I could almost envision it’s Krisjen. Same beautiful skin. Same toned thighs.
I swallow the rest of the water in one gulp and leave, walking up the stairs and opening my door. Before I close it, I hear Van Morrison playing in Army’s room. He plays it when he rocks Dex back to sleep.
Leaving the light off, I turn on my shower and push my jeans to the floor. Stepping in, I wash my hair and body, bowing my head under the spray and letting the heat pour down my back.
I love you.
I plant my forearm on the shower wall, leaning my head in. I still feel her whispers against my mouth. She kept saying it, brushing her lips over mine.
That’s what I’ll miss. More than anything. Her kisses. Without thinking, my mouth opens, feeling her tongue prying for entry just like she’s here.
I drop the handle of the faucet, ready to turn it to cold like I’m now in the habit of doing at the end of every shower, because the cold drives every thought out of my head, but I can’t turn it. I fist it, pushing myself to just do it, but the heat feels perfect. She’s here, right where she’s supposed to be. I can feel her smile against my mouth.
Instead, I turn off the water, wrap a towel around my waist, and walk to my bed. I leave a trail of water as I go, hearing music playing out by the pool. I sit on the edge and drop my head into my hands, hating how hard I am for her. Hating the ache in my chest, and the pain in my heart.