Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72853 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 364(@200wpm)___ 291(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
His beard is so epic that it kind of makes me want to stroke it like one would pet a very bushy cat.
Back to the picture I had in my head of Patrick McDonald…he was kinder, taller, and darker with jet-black hair. Freshly shaven. Kind of like the rugged, handsome men from movies and books. I imagined his eyes would dance. That he’d be funny. I thought he’d be a few years younger than Jace, so the age gap between us wouldn’t be huge. I imagined him slightly serious on the surface, but underneath, he was always ready to burst out with laughter.
My brother also had the best heart.
I thought it should follow that any friend of his would be the same.
I didn’t think this man would open the door to find me here and be immediately cold, rude, and dismissive.
His eyes rake over me now, and there’s absolutely no emotion in them. He doesn’t need emotion. His scowl is more than enough.
“It’s not going to be a thing. The marriage bit. I’d very much like it if you’d accept my offer of money and head back home.” He’s repeating himself now, and he’s not happy to have to do it. He passes his hand back and forth between us like he’s trying to swat me away, not just indicate me, the letter, the marriage part, and himself all in one sweep. “The letter is pure nonsense.”
Oh, really? He’s going to go there?
My eyes fill with hot, angry tears, but I blink them back. I’m too pissed to cry. It’s not going to happen, I swear. But no, that’s not the thing that’s not going to happen. The thing that’s not going to happen is this man telling me I’m not going to fulfill my brother’s last wishes. He’s not going to take a shit all over that. If he was truly his best friend, and I think I might actually be at the wrong house here, he would never say something like that.
Everything about this is all wrong. He’s all wrong.
He’s not the tall, dark, handsome, gallant, sweet, kind, brave, good man I imagined. He might be tall enough—around six feet—but he’s way too broad, too muscular, too powerful. He’s menacing, not handsome. With all that coppery hair and huge Viking-style beard, he’s not dark either. He’s not a beautiful man. He’s not classically handsome. He’s not ruggedly gorgeous. His face isn’t…well, I don’t know what it is, but I guess it is interesting. It’s the kind of face that maybe won’t be attractive until you look at it a few times and then a few times more. Until you get used to looking for the stuff that no one else will see at first, and then finally, it hits you. Even if you can’t fully put your finger on what is actually doing the hitting.
“What the nuts? It’s not nonsense, you butthole! The letter was Jace’s last wish. He wrote it knowing full well that if we were living it, then he wouldn’t be here, yet he still did it anyway. He arranged for us to get it a year later. He thought all of it out, and how painful would that have been, planning for your own death like that?”
There is zero change. Zero sympathy. Zero compassion in this man’s eyes. “I burned it.”
My jaw unhinges, and I feel like the rest of me does too. “You burned my brother’s letter? How could you do that? It was something he wrote to you. Something you had of him, and you just…just wrecked it like it was worth nothing?”
Shit, I’m shouting. I’m standing here on his expensive ass doorstep in his expensive ass neighborhood, getting shrill. And maybe I’d be embarrassed about it if I actually cared, but the only thing I care about is that this butthole has taken the level of butthole up to the level of asshole, and that is not okay.
I might have been persuaded to talk rationally about this and be all calm as we came to some kind of solution, but now? Now I’m freaking digging in. I’m going to be stubborn. Shitting all over this with his asshole ways is not okay.
Whoa, breathe. This man was Jace’s best friend. He’s the man your brother picked out of all the men in the world and planned for you to marry. If that didn’t work, he wanted you to be in each other’s lives. He wanted you to care about him. That has to mean something, even if you can’t see it now. Jace didn’t make mistakes. Not mistakes like this.
I know full well that anger is sometimes a mask for grief, and I have to remind myself of that again. Men deal with it differently. They can’t grieve the same way women do, and the way women have to grieve in this society is bad enough. It’s not healthy. Jace didn’t get a celebration of life. He got the full deal military funeral. I think he would have liked that, but he would have hated it too. He would have wanted a celebration for close friends and family. He would have wanted laughter and jokes and all the good memories. He would have wanted us to take joy in the fact that he lived at all, even if our hearts were torn apart and ripped wide open. He would have—