Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69413 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 278(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Something lurched behind my chest. “Was wondering when you were going to yell at me.”
“I’m not going to yell at you,” Landry said. “I just don’t understand, Jamie. Your text hurt. It really hurt.”
I was nodding even though I knew he couldn’t see me. “I’m so sorry,” I whispered. “Landry, you have to understand. I landed, and then my mom hurt herself, and now we have so many more medical bills, and my roommates are a disaster, and my job just isn’t enough—I’m not enough, Landry. I can’t see what any possible future between us could look like.”
He cleared his throat on the other end, and the image of him breaking down on the night of the wedding flashed through my head. He wasn’t feeling that way again, was he? Was that even possible?
“It could look like me driving down and meeting you at the beach, for one,” he said, his voice sounding weak. “I can hear the breeze. I can hear the waves.”
I couldn’t even imagine what that would be like—him sitting right here with me, under the stars.
“It could look like me never even stepping foot into your restaurant or your home, if you don’t want me to,” he offered. “And it could look like me putting my damn arms around you again and getting to kiss you again, Jamie. You can’t even imagine how much I want to feel that again.”
My voice was wobbly and barely a whisper when I spoke. “I think I can imagine that,” I said. “I think I want it more than anything, if I really let myself.”
“Ninety minutes, Jamie,” he said softly. “I can be in Stellara Beach in ninety minutes.”
A wave crashed against the rocks near me. I pulled in a long breath, reaching a tipping point that I didn’t think I could come back from.
“I’m at Paintbrush Cove,” I whispered. “It’s a little beach off of Mira Street. It can be hard to park near here—”
“Ninety minutes,” Landry repeated again before hanging up.
20
LANDRY
My Italian leather loafers slipped against the little narrow staircase as I made my way down toward the water, my breath catching in my chest. Coming down to Stellara Beach on a moment’s notice was the quickest and easiest decision I’d made in my life, but also one of the most nerve-wracking.
My heart was slamming inside me.
I had no idea what the hell I was doing, but somehow I also knew that it was one hundred percent, unquestionably, the right thing.
The sound of the waves drowned out my own pounding heartbeat as I saw a dim figure sitting on a patch of sand in front of the water. I would have recognized Jamie anywhere, but especially here, where he seemed to belong.
He turned to look at me as I walked up, his eyes wide as a deer in headlights. He was shirtless, his tanned, lean muscles on display in the moonlight, his hair a thick swoop of dark blond.
“You’re here,” I said, my voice barely louder than the waves. “And you’re not a marshmallow anymore.”
He stood up, the ghost of a smile on his face. That smile hid more emotion behind it than I could process, so much pain and longing and disbelief. It was how I felt, too, seeing him here.
“If you want the honest truth, I left this beach and then came back twice already in the last hour and a half,” he said, his gaze dancing across my face. “I thought I couldn’t do it, Landry.”
I swallowed hard. “Couldn’t do what?”
He shook his head slowly, and I could tell he was holding back an ocean of thought. “Couldn’t let myself try,” he finally said.
It was as if he’d reached inside my chest and gripped my heart.
“That’s the scariest part, isn’t it?” I said, giving him a sympathetic look. “Letting ourselves try.”
“God, yes.”
A wave crashed up against the nearby rocks, and the breeze blew through Jamie’s hair.
“I want to try with you, Jamie,” I told him. I reached out and grabbed his hand because I couldn’t stand it any longer, couldn’t stand being so close to him and not touching him. “I want to keep trying, every single day, if you’d let me. I don’t want to buy your affection. Hell, I think I could spend an entire year with you just visiting this beach, if that’s what you needed.”
He puffed out a quick laugh, then shook his head as he looked out at the sea. “Is it sad that I haven’t felt alive since the last time I saw you?”
“If it’s sad, then I guess we’re sad together,” I told him. “Because that’s how I’ve felt, too.”
“We’re definitely also crazy together,” he said. “I still have so much to learn about you. What if you collect gerbils? What if you drive like a maniac, or god forbid, you hate peanut butter?”