Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 84322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84322 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 422(@200wpm)___ 337(@250wpm)___ 281(@300wpm)
“Aye-aye, captain!”
I saluted her with the hand I’d been holding at attention, and she shoved me through a grin. “You bitch, this is important!”
I chuckled, pulling her in for a hug and holding her there until she sighed and deflated, resting her head on my shoulder.
“It’s going to be okay,” I assured her. “We have checked and double-checked and triple-checked that we have everything on the list. And if by some miracle something slipped through the cracks, I will drive back here and get whatever it is, no matter what time of day or night. Okay?”
She nodded against me, then stood straight, her eyes welling with tears.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, sweeping her hair from her face.
“I just… I can’t believe it’s happening. This is it, Jaz.” She smiled, but two small tears slipped free when she did. “We’re loading up to head to the Cape. For my wedding. I’m getting married!”
She threw herself into another hug, and I chuckled, rubbing her back. “You sure are. You ready?”
“I’ve been waiting my whole life for this moment,” she said when she pulled back, and then she wiped away the last of her tears and bolted toward Oliver, who turned from where he was talking to Tyler and caught her just as she launched herself into his arms. He spun her with the motion, and then they were kissing and latching onto each other like koala bears. I watched Tyler clear his throat uncomfortably before ambling toward his truck.
He didn’t look at me, of course.
I should have been used to it, after the way he disappeared last week and how he’d dutifully ignored me since our day at the lake. He hadn’t gone back to his place, staying at the house with me, Oliver, and Morgan, instead — but still, he’d been lively and normal when it was just the three of them, but practically silent when I joined in the conversation, and almost immediately after I did, he found an excuse to get up and do something suddenly important.
And honestly, how could I blame him?
In my need to talk to him about that day, to tell him what Morgan had confessed to me, I couldn’t just leave it alone. I couldn’t just stop at let’s be friends. Instead, I’d pushed him. I’d forced myself into his space and demanded to know what he would have done had the circumstances been different.
And the answer had fucked us both.
I hadn’t been able to go even one minute without thinking of the way his hands felt in my wet hair, or the familiar scent of his breath on my lips, or the way his voice had trembled when he told me he would have run to me, held me, and never let me go.
I would have never let you go.
It was torture — absolute masochism. I asked him what he would have done in another life, and his answer showed us what could have been.
But it couldn’t be — not now. Not when I had Jacob and he had Azra and so much bad blood had passed between us over the last several years. There were so many ways I didn’t even know the man he was now, the man he’d grown to be — and he certainly didn’t know much about who I was.
That was then, and this is now.
Still… it felt like he did know me, like I knew him, like no matter how much time and distance had passed between us, we would always be connected in a way that nothing would ever be fully hidden from the other.
And after what he said, after knowing what could have happened had circumstances been different… could we really be friends?
I sighed, watching him walk across the yard and jump in his truck, firing it to life without a glance in my direction. He was avoiding me like the plague, because he knew as well as I did that any time we were together, it was trouble.
He was doing the right thing.
And yet all I yearned to do was the wrong one.
I shook my head, angry with myself as I trotted over to the Escalade just as Morgan and Oliver climbed in. But when I opened the back door, the overflowing box leaning against it nearly tumbled out and flattened me. I caught it just in time, and Morgan gasped, hopping out to help me shove it back in.
“Uh,” I said when we had it contained, pointing to the completely full car. “Where am I supposed to sit?”
Morgan pointed across the yard, and I didn’t have to look to know that little finger was pointing at Tyler’s truck. “We left the front seat open in the truck,” she said, as if it were obvious. “No reason to have three in one car and only one in the other. Besides,” she said, lowering her voice a little as worry etched itself on her face. “I know after what I told you, maybe you guys are trying to be friends again. And I really, really want that. Maybe the drive will help.”