Total pages in book: 137
Estimated words: 138642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138642 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 555(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
He also would’ve known I’d never stop looking for him, no matter how many years slip by without answers.
I just don’t know how to tell Ophelia we finally have a clue and a new mess of questions, so I sink down in my patio chair and pop my beer tab.
She eyes me, sighs, and picks up her iced tea.
“You’re just going to sit there and grump all evening, aren’t you?”
My eyebrows go up. “Just drinking my beer, Butterfly. Shut it.”
She laughs.
“You throw that on for the bug or because you actually like the songs?” I nod at her chest and the shirt she’s wearing.
“The new album rocks! The symbol’s just a fun bonus,” she says.
Goddamn, does that outfit suit her. She’s wearing an oversized t-shirt tonight with a print of Milah Holly’s latest album cover on it. It’s a purple butterfly smeared across a black background like a soul taking flight—if it wasn’t just crushed and smeared by some clumsy asshole’s hand.
Me, I don’t get Holly’s music, but almost every girl under thirty does when the singer belts out ballads about broken hearts and pure love and good girls pushed into being bad by some uniquely awful fuckboy.
“You’re being all secretive again. Come on, what is it this time?” She huffs impatiently, sips more tea, and thunks the glass down on the little table between us. In the evening shadows, her eyes are green fireflies, as bright as the little glowing bugs dancing across the grass and trees of her blue-shaded backyard. “Did you find something new? With Ethan, I mean?”
Fuck, what’s that saying about good deeds going unpunished?
I wonder if this girl’s psychic as I shrug.
Truth be told, I’m a little embarrassed.
How could I not be, trying like hell to figure out where Ethan went for three damn years now and turning up with a big fat nothing?
If he ran off with Celeste Graves, if he got into a fight with her and—no.
I can’t think that shit.
That’s what half the town believes these days.
That he had something going on or he was so obsessed he lost his shit and disappeared them both.
Nah, I knew Ethan. He couldn’t have pulled a hair on her head when he was mooning over her half his life and he just wasn’t that type of guy.
A murderer? Even in some fit of fucked up passion or jealousy?
Not on my life.
For me, there are only two options.
One, he fessed up his feelings and she echoed them right back. They took off somewhere together to be happy without telling another living soul.
Or they didn’t make it anywhere alive—and if we ever find Ethan, it won’t be a happy ending at all.
It’s just gonna be whatever’s left of him. Hell, maybe Celeste Graves too.
Still, it shouldn’t have taken this long to find the note.
I’m not sure I want to tell Ophelia about it. Not till I understand why he hid it where he did, almost like he didn’t want it to be found.
“Hey.” Ophelia swings her legs. Her feet don’t even touch the ground. She’s always been a short thing and I guess that’s not changing. “I’ll tell you a secret if you tell me yours.”
“Seriously?” I side-eye her hard. “We’re a little old for ‘I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.’”
“Don’t be gross, Grant.” She flushes hotly.
“Mm-hmm.” I take a sip of my beer. “What’ve you got to tell me?”
“Nope. You first.”
I shake my head slowly, looking away from her across the yard. Past the porch overhang, the sky is clear and deep blue, the stars just freckles in the night. “Your news good news or shitty?”
“Yep. Good.”
“Then you go first. Let’s hear something good for a change.”
I’m already waiting for it when it comes—a slender fist thumping me in the arm. “You’re just trying to avoid telling me. Promise if I tell you, you’ll tell me.”
I sigh heavily. “You are a goddamned brat.”
“Asshole.”
“Punk.”
“Dick.”
“You kiss your ma with that mouth?” I growl.
As I say it, I can’t help glancing at her.
Yeah.
I’m thinking she’s gonna be glaring at me like usual, but no.
She’s got the weirdest look on her face tonight. Her skin’s all soft and pink again, like the summer heat crawled up inside her when it disappeared with the sunset.
That mouth I know she kisses her ma with is plump and red, her lips parted, and when she catches me staring she looks away stiffly.
Hell, I do too when I know how messed up that is.
She’s Ethan’s kid sister. The ultimate forbidden fruit.
I damned sure shouldn’t be eyeing her mouth or any part of her at all when I’m pushing thirty and I’m only here ’cause her missing brother was—still is—my best friend.
“I kiss my mom and anyone else I want,” she says haughtily. “Jeez. I hope there are nicer guys than you down in Florida.”