Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 91042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 455(@200wpm)___ 364(@250wpm)___ 303(@300wpm)
I inhaled sharply, wishing I could see it.
He rubbed his hands over the back of my legs. “That’s mine.”
I didn’t argue. Because I was. All of me.
Thirty-Four
Winslet
Humming. I was humming. A grin stretched across my face as I put the lasagna I had just finished preparing in the oven. I wasn’t a hummer, but apparently, I was so happy that I was now.
Oz had been staying the night with me here for the past week. Tuesday night, he’d taken me to Savelle Stables and shown me the horses. We’d watched a jockey out on the track with a horse that they were putting in a race soon, but I couldn’t remember which one. Thursday, he had taken me to a rodeo in Jackson.
Today was a heavy workday since it was the weekend. I had graded papers and worked on my lesson plans since I’d been so busy with him after work every day that I was behind on all of it. Tomorrow, I was going with him to his house. The one he lived in with four other guys, along with one of the guy’s wife and their baby. That was a lot of people in one house, but he had said it was big. After visiting their stables and seeing his parents’ house from a distance, I knew when he said big, it was likely a mansion.
Going to meet all the people in his world was intimidating. When we had gone to the stables, only some stablehands and their horse trainer were there. He had told me a little about all of them, and I did want to meet them. My biggest fear was them not liking me. All they knew about me was that my brother had stolen from them. If they found fault in me—because I had faults—then would Oz start to see it too?
My stomach clenched as I thought about it. I didn’t want to lose him. Life before him had seemed so dull. It was as if he had walked into my life and turned on the lights. Well, after I got out of the basement. But even then, that hadn’t been dull.
There was a knock at the door. My smile was back. Oz was early. He wasn’t due here for two more hours, but I wasn’t about to complain. I would be all for a repeat from when he had worked here last Saturday.
When I swung the door open, my smile faltered, then fell.
“Alec.” I said his name, and it felt odd. The familiarity of it gone.
He smiled, and the singular dimple I had once adored appeared. It did nothing for me now.
“Hey, Winzy,” he said with the same air of cocky confidence that he always had.
“What are you doing here?” I asked, not returning his smile.
He chuckled. “I came to see you. It’s our bye week, and it’s been a year now. I thought—well, I hoped you’d had time to forgive me. Talk to me.”
I opened my mouth, then shut it.
He stepped toward me, and I took a step back, which was a bad idea in hindsight because that allowed him an in to the apartment. Yeah, not happening.
“Look, um, Alec, I forgive you. I don’t care. I mean, I did then, but as you said, it’s been over a year. That was another lifetime ago. There really isn’t anything for us to talk about.”
He walked over to the sofa and sat down.
What the hell? Did he not just hear me?
Leaning back as if he belonged here, he propped an ankle on his knee and stretched out an arm along the back of it. Tilting his head, he winked at me. “Come on, Winzy. Talk to me. If for nothing else, closure.”
I let go of the door and turned to face him. “I…have closure,” I said, frowning.
Did he need closure?
“Come on, babe. I miss you. I miss talking to you. You were my best friend. Then—poof—gone.”
I narrowed my eyes. Had he always been this obnoxious?
“I wouldn’t call it poof. More like you were going down on another girl and she answered your phone when I called.”
He winced. “She was a bitch, babe. One that was a fucking mistake. I messed up. Learned my lesson. I let the best thing that had ever happened to me walk away.”
I pointed at my chest. “Me?”
He gave me a smug smile and nodded. Like that was news I’d been waiting to hear him say. Talk about having a big head. The NFL had really ruined him. There was no way he had been this bad when we dated. I’d have remembered.
“Okay, as nice as that is for you to say, I do not feel the same way. To be completely honest, I don’t feel anything where you’re concerned.”
The incredulous smirk, as if he didn’t believe me, made me think maybe I did feel something. Disgust.