Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 111400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 557(@200wpm)___ 446(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111400 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 557(@200wpm)___ 446(@250wpm)___ 371(@300wpm)
I squirmed in my chair. “No, I mean I need to talk to Cheyenne about us. Maybe we’re moving too fast.”
Beckett and Moretti exchanged a look that pissed me off.
“Didn’t you just say things were going great?” Beckett asked.
“They are,” I said, knowing I was making no sense and getting aggravated about it. “Maybe they’re going too great.”
“Cole, what the hell are you talking about?” Moretti looked totally confused.
“I’m talking about the fact that I’m in love with her, okay?” I snapped. “I’m in love with her, and Mariah’s in love with her, and everything is so perfect, there has to be something wrong.”
“Are you listening to yourself?” Beckett shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong, Cole.”
“Except that you don’t trust good things,” Moretti said.
“Why should I?” I demanded, taking another big swallow from my beer. “Huh? Why should I?”
“Because they’re real, Cole.”
“You know what else is real? Bad luck. Tragedy.” I locked my jaw. “Look at what just happened Monday. One second that baby was fine, the next, she couldn’t breathe.”
“But you were there, Cole,” Beckett reminded me. “You saved her. That was a good thing.”
“It could have easily gone the other way.” I was not going to be talked out of this.
Moretti leaned on the table. “We’re not saying bad things don’t happen to good people, because they do—we know it. But you can’t live in fear of them. And you don’t have to go looking for them.”
“I’m not looking for them,” I said defensively. “I’m just not choosing to be blind to them.”
Moretti sighed, lifting his beer. “Look, I’ve never been in love, so I don’t know what it feels like. It sounds scary as fuck.”
“It is,” I confirmed.
“But I do know you. And I think you’ll regret it if you walk away.”
“I do too,” Beckett added.
“I’m not walking away,” I said irritably. “Nothing I’ve said is about walking away.”
“Then what’s it about?” Moretti demanded.
“It’s about being smart. Strong. Tough. It’s about protecting the people you love. It’s about making decisions based on what you know is true, not about how you feel in the moment. You have to—you have to put aside what you feel in the moment and go with what you know.” My body was sweaty beneath my clothes, and my heart was pumping fast inside my ribs. “Maybe I just need to take a step back and make sure I’m doing the right thing.”
“Okay.” Moretti held up both hands, as if offering a truce. “Didn’t mean to upset you.”
“I’m not upset.” I pulled out my wallet and threw down some cash. “But I better go pick up Mariah now. It’s getting late.”
In the car on the way home, I went over the uncomfortable conversation again and again, hating myself for lying to my friends but also irritated that they thought they knew better than I did how to handle the situation. It was easy for them to trust in good things. They weren’t me. They hadn’t been through what I had.
I had to take a few minutes and calm down before I walked over to Cheyenne’s.
She greeted me at the front door with a hug and a smile, flour dusted all over her clothes. “Come on in! We’re just waiting for the second batch to come out of the oven.”
I went inside, inhaling the homey scent of fresh-baked cookies mingling with the Balsam fir Christmas tree, trying desperately to relax. Cheyenne was good at reading my face, and I didn’t want her to ask me what was wrong tonight. I was too exhausted to be convincing.
“Daddy!” Mariah yelled when I entered the kitchen. She wore a red apron that was way too big for her, which she’d obviously wiped her hands on many times. “Want to help us decorate?”
I yawned. “How about I just watch?”
“Tired?” Cheyenne asked.
“A little.”
“Want a cup of coffee?”
“That sounds great.”
“Hello, dear,” Darlene called from the sink, where she was washing out a mixing bowl.
“Hi, Mrs. Dempsey.”
I sat at the dining room table with a cup of coffee and watched Mariah and Cheyenne frost and sprinkle their cookies. They laughed and teased each other, trading funny looks and making inside jokes that should have made me trust in good things.
But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
Over Cheyenne’s shoulder, there was a clock on the wall. I could hear it ticking.
Twenty-Eight
Cheyenne
Christmas Eve, I was getting ready to head over to the Mitchells’ house when my mother popped her head into my room. “Got a minute?”
“Sure,” I said, holding up two different earrings and checking the mirror to see which one I liked better with the high-necked black lace top I had on. “Which one do you think?”
My mother sat on the bed behind me and looked at my reflection. “Hmmm, I like the smaller ones.”
“Okay.” I set the dangly one down and put on the little hoops. “What’s up?”