Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 90503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90503 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 453(@200wpm)___ 362(@250wpm)___ 302(@300wpm)
His eyes held mine, and I felt in my heart he was being sincere. It would feel good to forgive him, wouldn’t it? The past belonged in the past; the present was what mattered. And in the present, I was not a lovesick seventeen-year-old girl pining after a guy who’d left her behind, and Dallas was no longer that irresponsible, impulsive seventeen-year-old boy. He was a grown man who wanted to apologize for his thoughtless actions so long ago. Most guys probably wouldn’t have bothered.
Which made me wonder.
“I’m curious,” I said, folding my arms over my chest again. “Why now? After all these years?”
He looked down at his boots. “I don’t know. It just felt like it was time.”
Something told me that wasn’t the whole truth, but I didn’t press him. Maybe it had taken him this long to grow tired of carrying the burden of his guilt. Who was I to insist he keep doing it?
“Okay, Dallas,” I said, letting my arms drop. I imagined myself letting go of all the hurt like a child releases a helium balloon into the sky. “I forgive you.”
His shoulders relaxed as he exhaled. “Thank you.”
“Feel better?”
“Yes. Do you?”
“Yes.” It was the truth. I hadn’t realized how much I’d needed to hear him say those words, even after all that time. Maybe now my nightmares would stop. This had to be what the universe was warning me about, right?
“Well, it was good to see you,” he said, pulling keys from his pocket.
“You too,” I admitted, and suddenly there was a part of me that didn’t want him to go so quickly. “Do you … do you want to come in?”
He smiled. “Sure, thanks.”
My heart beat erratically as he followed me into the front hall and shut the door behind us.
“So are there two apartments in this house?” Dallas glanced up the stairs to the upper flat.
“Yes.” I opened the door to the lower, which led into my living room. “This one’s mine. How did you find out my address, anyway?”
“It wasn’t that hard.”
“That’s actually kind of scary.” I shut the door behind him.
“You live alone?” he asked.
“Yes.”
He wandered over to the bookcase along one wall and studied my framed photographs. “These are your sisters, right?”
I walked over and stood next to him, shoulder to shoulder. Or rather shoulder to bicep, since I was a good five inches shorter than he was in my bare feet. “Yes. That’s Stella, the oldest,” I said, pointing to her in a photo of the three of us taken at Emme’s engagement dinner a couple weeks ago. “And that’s Emme, my middle sister. She’s getting married this fall.”
“Everyone looks happy.”
“We are.”
He glanced down at me. “I’m glad to hear that.”
Our eyes met, and something happened in my chest that made me back away and head for the kitchen. Put a little distance between us. “I’m thirsty. If I go into the other room to get us something to drink, are you going to leave without saying goodbye?”
“Depends. Are you gonna keep giving me shit about what I did?” He trailed me into the kitchen, which was small and narrow.
“Maybe.” I took two bottles of water from the fridge and handed him one. “You’d deserve it.”
“Fair enough.” Leaning back against the counter, he twisted the cap off the bottle and drank.
Standing across from him, my back against the fridge, I watched, mesmerized by the motion of his throat as he swallowed. When I caught myself staring, I looked down at my water and unscrewed the cap. “So where do you live now?”
“Portland.”
“Wow. That’s a ways from here. What do you do there?”
“I’m a tattoo artist.”
I had to smile. “Of course you are.”
He smiled back, and the first genuinely warm current passed between us. “And you have a yoga studio?” he asked, gesturing toward my clothing.
“Yes.” For a moment, I was self-conscious about my appearance. I touched my messy bun, wishing I’d taken a moment at the studio to redo it. “I taught this morning. Then I came home and took a nap, so I’m —” Then I realized something. My arm dropped. “Hey. How do you know what I do?”
“Um.” He looked at the ceiling, laughing a little. “I may have drunk-Googled you once or twice.”
I gasped. “What? That is so unfair! You’re not even on social media, so I had no clue about you.”
“Does that mean you drunk-Googled me, too?”
“No.” I sniffed and drank some water before going on. “I sober-Googled you.”
He laughed again. “I think that might be worse.”
I kicked him gently in the shin with one bare foot. “At some point, I just wanted to know you were still alive, you big jerk.”
“I’m alive.”
“I can see that.” Now that we were through the heavy stuff, I wanted to know more about him. “So fill me in on the last twelve years.”