Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 77930 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77930 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 390(@200wpm)___ 312(@250wpm)___ 260(@300wpm)
“Probably not next time,” I told him, knowing that I was probably making a mistake by being too honest. I never wanted to seem ungrateful when in reality I was just being my usual, introverted self.
“Why not next time?” he asked.
“Because after a day like today I prefer a drink alone out on my balcony, honestly,” I said. “I’m not much of a going-out-to-bars kind of guy.”
He gave me a nod. He was being very respectful, even if his eyes made me feel like there was a battering ram in my chest.
“I understand,” he said. “Jade Brewery is much more chill and relaxed than most bars, but I respect it. You like being alone.”
I swallowed, feeling like I suddenly had a miniature war going on inside me.
Yes, I prefer being alone.
But I’m also super lonely, every night before bed.
And you’re also the nicest person I’ve met in a very, very long time.
“I guess so,” I said.
“I won’t bug you again,” Chase said, reaching for the front door.
“Wait,” I told him. “No. You can, uh, bug me. Please bug me. I’m really sorry. Sometimes words come out of my mouth and they end up sounding much worse than they did in my mind. I’m really not trying to be rude, I’m just… not always good socially.”
His expression softened immediately. “I think you seem good just the way you are,” he assured me. “Not everyone is a loudmouth, TMI-machine, annoying twink butterfly like I am.”
He definitely was a twink butterfly—with that whole hot-and-pretty thing going for him in spades.
But he didn’t strike me as a loudmouth, and TMI had never bothered me.
“Trust me, you are not annoying,” I said. “I appreciate the invite, even if I’d rather go to the dentist all night than go to a bar right now. The brewery does sound… nice. As nice as a bar could sound.”
Chase laughed, and when he smiled I saw faint dimples appear on his cheeks. My heart rate sped up again, and I felt like I was caught in some tornado of nervous excitement.
“Here,” Chase said. “I’ll give you my number. Anytime, and I mean anytime you might feel an inkling of desire to check out the brewery, I’ll go with you. No big social event, no pressure at all. Just us. I’m sure they have some good rum cocktails, by the way.”
An image from this morning flashed through my mind. Chase and Carla had seen the smattering of liquor bottles and supplements on my kitchen counter. The last thing I wanted the TV crew to see was a bottle of Hard-4-Long pills. I didn’t mind if anonymous strangers on the internet saw me getting hard, but people I had to work with in real life? The idea of them thinking about my cock at all made me want to melt into the floor and disappear.
Chase started to tell me his number, and I pulled out my phone and tapped it into my contact list.
A little glimmer of disbelief filled my chest as I typed in his phone number. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gotten a phone number from someone new who wasn’t just a research colleague.
Fuck, had I really been that antisocial since college?
I’d finished grad school four years ago. This year, I’d just turned twenty-eight. Somewhere during that time, enjoying being alone had slowly morphed into being deeply lonely, and being confronted with that fact now was slightly concerning.
I slid my phone back in my pocket. Chase swung open the front door and looked back at me, his hair luminous in the slanted sunlight.
“Have a good night,” he said, “And remember--I might be the biggest extrovert in Jade River, but I never make anyone do anything they don’t want to do. Ever. Okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
He held my gaze, making a point of it. “That means if you went to the brewery with me, spent two minutes there, and then just wanted to go home, you could just say the words. Hell, two seconds. Adam, you could just turn around and run out screaming, and I’d even be understanding of that.”
“I think I can manage not to run screaming,” I said. “Probably.”
He smiled at me and the dimples appeared again. “And remember, diffuse light. It works great.”
He headed down the front walkway, and finally I was truly alone again in my house.
I headed back through the hall and upstairs, grabbing my work laptop and taking my place again on my bedroom balcony. I plopped down in the lounge chair and opened up some of the data calculation spreadsheets I’d been working on yesterday.
My work was complex, but it made sense. I felt at home in the numbers.
I sat out on the balcony in the low glow of the string lights I’d strung onto the railing, getting lost in my work.