Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
This is what I’ve wanted my whole life. Passion and peace. But I didn’t know that until I came to know her. Can I really have it in one person? It’s wild to think that, but it feels possible with Harlow.
“Maybe there’s a way,” she adds, her tone bright.
That’s a relief to hear her say. I’ve held back from broaching the topic since the first time we did that night two weeks ago. She wasn’t ready then. Perhaps she is now. “Maybe there is,” I say.
She pulls back, studies my face. “Do you think we’ll find it?”
My heart thumps louder. Can she hear it? She has to. “I want to,” I say, laying my wishes on the line. “Do you?”
She gives me a soft nod as she returns to tracing the lines of the books. “I do. Especially because you have an art soul too.”
“Just like you.”
“Maybe that’s why we’re good together,” she says with hope in her eyes—the same hope I feel when I’m with her.
“There are a million little reasons we’re good together. You worship coffee, you like my shirts, you love the gifts I give you…”
“You send me photos of your day. You have great taste in music. You forgot to do the dishes when I distracted you with sex.”
I laugh as she busts me. “You did distract me.” Then I turn more serious, brushing some strands of hair from her face. “There are a few big reasons too,” I say, cracking open the conversation. I don’t want to hold back any longer with her. I want to find a way. I want her to know how I feel.
“What are the big ones?”
Now that we’re here though, I don’t entirely know how to say you fill the empty spaces inside me without also saying when the hell do you want me to tell your father? I don’t want to push her without a plan, but I’ll make one if she’s ready. I press a kiss to her shoulder. “You make me stronger. You make me better. And you make me happy,” I say, starting that way, laying out the stakes.
She wraps her leg around mine, our calves curling together as she whispers, “And you see me for who I am.”
I run my thumb along her chin. “I want to keep seeing you…for who you are,” I say, with all its implications.
Then, screw implications.
There are metaphors and there are words. Clear, direct, meaningful. We both know what’s happening. We’re both adults.
I brush a kiss to her lips then pull back, feeling bold and ridiculously happy even before I say, “I’m in love with you.”
Then I’m happier to have said it.
Her breath catches. The look in her eyes is incandescent. They shine with tears, but really, emotion. “I’m so in love with you.”
I feel free. I feel unwound. I feel like I’m exactly where I should be, no matter how risky our choices are.
I only feel rightness. Truth. Possibility.
And a new kind of joy. I know we’ll find a way.
I gaze down at her ankle, staring a little longer than usual at her scar, remembering the day she had me sign her pink cast. “I have another reason we’re good together.”
“Tell me,” she says eagerly.
“How about I show you?”
She’s lounging on her couch in a tank top and panties, the chocolate cake on a plate in her lap, her feet across my thighs. As she takes a bite, I dip the brush into a bottle of mint green nail polish and spread it across her big toe, then her middle toe, then her little toe.
She offers me a bite from her fork, and I take it.
Then I switch to lavender nail polish, painting the other nails in alternating colors just like they were painted on the day after her bike accident.
When I’m done, I blow on the polish. “Skittles toes.”
Harlow sets down the unfinished slice of cake on the table, then looks at her toes, then me. “I love my Skittles toes,” she says, a touch breathless.
She’s not talking about the pedicure. “I love spending nights with you, Harlow,” I tell her, returning to the topic.
Her eyes lock with mine. “It’s my favorite part of the day too,” she says.
The nights are wonderful, but I’m hungry for days too. “I want them both,” I say.
“Me too,” she says with emotion in her eyes.
I need to make a plan. Stat.
The tickets for the Un-Gentleman are for tomorrow. I take a deep, fortifying breath. “Maybe tomorrow night will give us an idea of how hard it’ll be,” I suggest, carefully, ever so carefully, opening the topic.
“When we go to the theater with them?” she asks. “What do you mean?”
I’m still working through the details. “Maybe we can just see how he is with us.”
“With us together?” she squeaks.
“Not like this,” I say, shaking my head as I gesture to us on the couch. “More like…we can feel him out. Try to get a sense of how he reacts to the two of us. Next to each other. Walking down the aisle to the seats together.” Then, an idea flashes, fully formed. I’m a genius. “We could even arrive together.”