Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 100713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100713 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Wiping my eyes, I curled up and stared into the dark, too restless to sleep. For what felt like half the night, I tossed and turned, worried that the voice was right, that I’d only been fooling myself about being able to walk away from this thing with Beckett unscathed.
And it wasn’t his fault at all. I was the one who’d allowed my feelings to stray into dangerous territory. Allowing myself to feel again was so thrilling, I hadn’t resisted the rush of the tide. Was I now going to drown?
No—wait a minute.
I flipped onto my back. This wasn’t really fair to Beckett. I wasn’t even giving him a chance to admit there was hope for us, because I wasn’t being honest about my feelings. I was doing exactly what I’d done way back when—pretending I didn’t care as deeply as I did because I didn’t feel worthy of him.
But I wasn’t that girl anymore.
It’s not that I wasn’t afraid, because I was.
He’d told me he didn’t believe in forever. And I might not be enough to change his mind. That was a risk I’d have to take.
But I couldn’t leave here without giving us a chance to breathe. To grow. To be even better than we might have been.
Taking a deep, shaky breath, I made up my mind.
I’d tell him how I felt. That I didn’t want this to end. That I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I was willing to try.
Then I would know for sure if this was only a little girl’s fantasy, or we were always meant to be.
Seventeen
Beckett
Friday afternoon, I had to attend a ceremony rehearsal over at Cole’s house. Their yard was deep, running all the way to the creek, which bordered the back of the property. The wide green lawn held a huge white tent over to one side, under which tables were being set up. On the other side, rows of chairs were set up on either side of an aisle.
As I stood surveying everything, Moretti came up and thumped me on the back. “You ready for this?”
“I have a few lines about love and commitment, et cetera, et cetera, that I found on the internet printed on a note card. Is that ready?”
He laughed. “Sounds good to me.”
The rehearsal was pretty quick and easy. I was escorting Cole’s daughter Mariah back down the aisle after the ceremony. She giggled incessantly as we practiced walking arm in arm from the floral arch between the rows of chairs on either side of the grass path serving as the aisle. When we reached the patio, I turned to her and held up my palms. She grinned and gave me two high-fives.
“We nailed it,” I told her.
“We did,” she agreed.
Everyone told me to go get Maddie and meet them downtown for dinner and drinks, but I declined. We couldn’t leave my dad and Elliott, and besides, we only had two nights left together. Tomorrow night would be spent in a crowd.
Tonight, I wanted her to myself.
After dinner, my dad and I turned on the Tigers game and settled on the couch. Elliott was on the floor with DiMaggio as usual, and a warm breeze floated in through the screens.
Maddie came into the great room with a plastic bag from the drugstore. “Beck, I put the things you asked me to get on your dresser.”
“Thank you,” I said, watching her drop to the floor and start pulling things out of the bag. She was fresh from a shower and wore her denim shorts and a clean white T-shirt. Her hair was combed and damp, her feet bare. When the bag was empty, she spread it out and placed her feet on it.
“Okay, Elliott. You want to try painting my toes?” She picked up a bottle of nail polish and shook it, making it click. The sound took me back to childhood, when I’d observed my sisters doing each other’s nails at the kitchen table.
“Yes!” Elliott jumped up and came over to sit at Maddie’s feet.
“Be careful, remember? You have to hold your hand really steady and go slow.”
“I will.” Hunching down on his knees, he concentrated hard on the task, slowly applying the bright pink color with Maddie looking on.
“Not bad,” she said when one foot was complete. “Now the other one.”
Elliott got to work on her second foot. “Oops.” He looked up at her. “I messed up and got some on your toe.”
“That’s okay.” She smiled and picked up a little packet that almost reminded me of a condom. Tearing it open, she took out a little wipe and touched up her foot. “All better. Try again. Then we’ll let it dry a bit and you can do a second coat.”
“Then can I do your fingers?” he asked excitedly.
“Well, I wasn’t really planning to wear polish on my hands,” she said apologetically, “but you could do it just for practice.”