Total pages in book: 61
Estimated words: 58397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 58397 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 292(@200wpm)___ 234(@250wpm)___ 195(@300wpm)
Ah, so the main building.
Mathis sat down in one of the chairs and lit up a cigarette. “Your dry cleaning arrived earlier. That’s all I had to say.”
“Thank you.” I stepped outside and took a seat too. “Do you have any plans for the Fourth of July?”
We’d have one week back home in Boston before we headed out again. But it would be our last extended trip for a while. After a tour of some of our major hotels on the mainland, we’d be home for a couple months.
“I’ll be at my brother’s, I reckon,” he replied. “What about you?”
“Same as always, I suppose. Trent’s family picnic.” My cousin and his wife went all out for the holiday. I mostly went because Julia loved to spend time with Trent’s girls. They were her age.
Mathis nodded slowly and took a drag from his smoke.
“You invitin’ Peyton?” he asked with a smirk.
I chuckled. “I wish, but he’ll be with his own family.” It’d come to no one’s surprise yesterday when Peyton and I had shown some PDA at the pool and later at dinner. “He’ll fly straight to Seattle when we get to Miami.”
I wasn’t looking forward to that, even though I understood him. I was just being selfish. I’d promised him we’d make sure he could see his family once a month, “give or take,” and it’d been almost two since he’d spent time with them. Additionally, most of his prerecorded episodes on the radio network had aired now, so he’d spend a day in the studio while he was on the West Coast too.
“Speak of the devil.” Mathis nodded at something behind me.
I peered over my shoulder and saw Peyton walking toward us. He looked tired, but he smiled when he spotted me.
“You’re up.” He jogged the last few steps and squeezed my shoulder, then dipped down and kissed me chastely. “How was your nap?”
“Fantastic. They should be a thing for adults, too.”
“I hear it works in Spain.” He grinned and sat down in the empty chair next to me. “When are we heading out?”
“Whenever you’re ready.” I grabbed his hand, just because I could, and threaded our fingers together. “I thought I’d pick up dinner before. That’s all.”
“Perfect. I only need a quick shower. Can we get something greasy from the pool grill?”
I chuckled. “Anything you want.”
“Well, aren’t you two sickeningly sweet,” Mathis drawled.
“Finally! I’m one of those people now,” Peyton exclaimed. “Just wait till we get to the office. All his memos will be delivered on pink Post-its with hearts on them.”
I laughed and kissed his knuckles.
An hour or so later, we arrived on a secluded part of the beach with one daypack and one to-go bag from the grill.
“I apologize for not being more creative with what I would like to consider our second date.”
Our day on the private beach had been too good to waste in the official count.
“This is perfect,” Peyton said with a shake of his head. “I just wanna chill with you.”
After we got comfortable on the blanket, he tore into our food and devoured a hot dog—off the kids’ menu—before I’d even started on a pizza slice.
“What a fucking day,” he groaned around his food.
My amusement made way for a pinch of worry. “Did I miss something while I had my beauty sleep?”
He shrugged and grabbed another hot dog, getting mustard and relish on his fingers. “I had a fight with my mom over the phone. All I did was express worry about being away from them for so long, and she laid into me. Said I should stop treating her like a child, which, of course, made me feel guilty and…blah. It’s a whole thing between us.”
I squeezed his knee and took a bite of my pizza. “Start from the beginning, and then maybe I can help.”
If this was rough for him, he didn’t show it. Hopefully, my reassurance at the pool yesterday had alleviated his fears. He did look very tired, though.
“I’m gonna go with the shortest version,” he said. “Partly because there isn’t all that much to say, and partly because I’m better at answering questions than rambling. Unless it’s about history.”
I smiled softly and nodded for him to go on.
“So, she was a single mom with me for the longest time,” he started. “We made it work pretty well, I thought. But she was lonely and exhausted, working three jobs and so on. There’s no one else—our family’s tiny, even more so after Nana died.” He wiped his mouth on a napkin. “Mom met a dude when I was…sixteen, I think. And by dude, I mean a fucking asshole. He and I didn’t get along whatsoever. He was a dick to Mom, and she refused to see it.”
Having only heard the beginning, it was already easy to see why Peyton had been tired for years. A mental exhaustion that couldn’t be treated with a nap. He’d been forced to grow up too early.