Total pages in book: 29
Estimated words: 26493 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 132(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 88(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 26493 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 132(@200wpm)___ 106(@250wpm)___ 88(@300wpm)
I pause, trying to decide how best to answer. "You want the truth?"
"Depends." She narrows her eyes on me as we pass beneath a streetlight. "Does it involve bodies in your basement?"
I smile despite myself, and then it slips. Fuck. I've never told anyone the shit I'm about to tell her, but she's trusting me with her safety here. The least I can do is trust her with my truth. If she's going to be living in this town, she's bound to learn it eventually, anyway.
"Halloween used to be my favorite holiday. I fucking loved everything about it."
"What changed?"
"When I was twelve, I went into this old, crumbling mansion on a dare on Halloween night," I admit. "I didn't know a man had walked away from rehab and started living there. I walked into the bedroom, and I guess I scared him. He jumped out of the bed, wrapped in this white blanket, screaming bloody murder. He thought I was there to take him back to rehab. I thought he was a fucking ghost. I hauled ass out of there, convinced I was going to die. Naturally, I wasn't watching where I was going. I tripped on the stairs and fell down the entire flight. Broke my arm and my right leg, and managed to knock myself out."
"Oh no," she whispers.
"Yeah, it was bad. But that's not even the worst part." I pause again, my heart pounding. I can't believe I'm going to tell her this shit willingly. "The paramedics hauled me out of there in front of half the town, covered in my own piss."
"Oh, Drake," she whispers.
"You can imagine what that was like for a twelve-year-old kid. My classmates never let me live that shit down." Had it not been for my brother and a few friends like Steele, I would have been a complete outcast. "So yeah, unicorn, I'm dead serious. I've never brought a woman to my place. I don't even like most people."
"That's honestly kind of sad, Drake. You were just a little boy, terrified and in immense pain. It could have happened to anyone."
"You're right. But they were just kids, too. And to them, it was hilarious," I murmur. "Reminding me about it every day for the next six years was even more hilarious."
My heart squeezes in a vise when she reaches across the console. I don't know who the fuck this girl is or where she came from, but the minute she slips her hand into mine to comfort me, I decide that I'm marrying her. Whatever it takes, whatever I have to do to convince her, I'll do.
She's it for me, my one. My future.
"Do they still give you a hard time?" she asks. "If so, I'll help you egg their houses."
"Not really," I murmur, lacing our fingers together. "Some people say a lot of shit about me spending so much time alone, but most people around here forgot about what happened back then long before my brother and I made our first million. You never really forget when you're made to feel a certain way, though."
I certainly never did. Most people leave me the fuck alone about it. But some people…well, some people just don't fucking get it. To them, I'm odd. They whisper about me when they think I can't hear. I don't really give a shit, though. The whole experience made me…harder in a way, less trusting. I don't let people in. I don't get close to people. I mind my goddamn business and keep everyone at a distance. It's just easier that way.
At least, that's what I always thought. But everything feels different tonight. For the first time in my life, I don't want easy. I don't want safe. I don't want distance.
I want the woman seated beside me, even if it means exposing all my raw parts and uncomfortable secrets.
I don't know if unicorns are magic. But the curvy little goddess seated beside me dressed in a unicorn onesie certainly feels a little like magic to me. And for a motherfucker who gave up believing in magic and fairytales a long damn time ago, that's something special.
Chapter Three
Madeline
Iprocess what Drake said as we drive through town. Despite the late hour, there are people everywhere. Halloween is way too popular around here.
But he's right, I decide. People do tend to forget the trauma they left you with, even when you don't. It's easier to brush aside the way you made someone feel than it is to forget the way you felt, especially when their mistreatment is a core memory for you. To them, it's just another memory in a long line. But for you, it's foundational, indelibly stamped on your psyche for the rest of your life.
No matter how big you grow or how old you get, you never forget how small you were made to feel.