Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
So it was second nature to pull him back down to me and tell him I loved him right back. Because a man who could spread so much of it out, with not just his actions but with his words too, needed to hear it right back. And that was a job I would gladly take.
A loud whistle had us pulling away to find Yuki there, shaking her head. “You two, you make me sick with happiness.”
I snickered and went up to my toes, kissing him again. Rhodes smiled. “Text me when you’re on your way back.”
“I will.”
I smiled back at him and ducked into the car, clutching my purse as Yuki slid in after me, giving Rhodes a hug on the way. She smiled as she settled in, her manager squeezing in as well. “I love seeing you this happy, Ora.”
My exhale was choppy with the joy in my chest. “I like feeling this happy.”
The last few years had been the happiest of my life. It was Rhodes, Amos, and Azalia, of course, but it was also the whole town in general. My life in general. I’d settled in. It was home. I had family and friends. And I got to see them all the time when they came to visit the shop.
I still worked there.
I owned it now actually.
Mr. Nez had gotten even more ill about two years ago, and Clara had admitted that she needed money for his treatment—adding in a sharp look when I’d opened my mouth to offer to help financially, so I’d closed it immediately—but also admitted that her heart wasn’t in the store anymore and she was considering selling it. She wanted to go back to nursing. I loved working at the store, and I figured, why not?
So that’s what we did. I bought it. Jackie was commuting to school in Durango and helped me. I hired Amos when he was home. And I’d hired a couple more people who moved into town.
Buying it had been a terrific decision.
Just like having an addition built to our house had been.
Then again, just about every decision I’d made since that night in Moab when I had decided to drive to, and possibly settle in, Pagosa had been a great one.
“Your face when you won was priceless,” Yuki’s dad chuckled hours later.
His daughter laughed, pushing her chair back. “We were both half asleep when they announced the category, and I had no idea what was going on until I saw the screen with my name on it,” she admitted.
It was the truth.
We had gotten dropped off at the sports bar where the men in our lives had hung out during the awards ceremony. I had assumed she would want to go to one of the after-parties, especially after winning Album of the Year, but she had shrugged me off with a look of horror and said, “I’m starving, and I’d rather see my daddy.”
And I’d rather see my family, so we’d left; we went straight to the bar slash restaurant in our stupid expensive dresses, with Yuki promising to pay for them when I told her I was worried I’d get it dirty. I’d had fun at the ceremony, but nothing was better than walking into the restaurant and seeing Mr. Young with his arms crossed over his chest, laughing at something Rhodes had said. My perfect Rhodes, who was leaning back against the booth with Azalia standing up and bouncing on his lap while Am stared hard at a table across the room. One quick glance had me recognizing the girl he was staring at. She had been at the ceremony too and won something about fifteen minutes before Yuki had.
I’d gone and given them all kisses and hugs, taking Azalia and play-eating her cheek before my daddy’s girl had reached out for her older brother, who took her without hesitation.
Azalia was a miracle who’d made her tiny, tadpole-sized presence known a little over a year after Rhodes and I had gotten married. My eyes had teared up, his had too, and if I’d thought he’d been protective before, it was nothing compared to after that. I’d thrived on it too.
But focusing back on the present and not on the two-year-old passed out in Am’s arms, I still couldn’t believe that Yuki had won. Actually, I could, but it was still surprising and amazing. She’d thanked me twice in a nervous rush of gratitude onstage, and I’d cheered as loudly as I wanted, annoying the people around me.
She promised to send me a plaque, and I had just the perfect wall to put it on. In our bedroom. Beside the last one she’d given me for that fateful album we’d written together at a low point in both our lives. Yet here we were, better than ever.