Total pages in book: 132
Estimated words: 133224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 666(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133224 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 666(@200wpm)___ 533(@250wpm)___ 444(@300wpm)
Blake is besotted with me. Our time together has been the best months of my life.
We laugh, we make sweet love and fuck like strangers, but more than that, we adore each other. Our love is based on friendship and a deep understanding.
This life with this man is where I’m meant to be.
Blake hops out of the shower and dries himself with a towel. He comes up behind me, pushes my hair to the side of my neck, and kisses me. “Round two.” He smirks up against my skin.
“Are you kidding?” I mumble around my toothbrush. “We were just hard at it for forty minutes in the shower. You cannot want more.”
But I know that he will. The man’s insatiable.
“Behave yourself and go to bed.”
“Or what?” His eyes glow with mischief.
“Or you are grounded.”
“In my bedroom?” He gives me the look, the one that he does so well. Fuck me, it says, and do it hard.
I point to the bed as I keep brushing my teeth. He ambles into the bedroom, and I smile to myself in the mirror. Being the object of Blake’s affection will never grow old.
I’m the luckiest girl in the world.
A million thoughts and no direction.
Tomorrow I’ve got the vet appointment, and then I’ll drop by the market and get some groceries. I want to try that new recipe this weekend. I mean, I might do it with chicken instead of beef. Yeah, I think I’ll do that.
And then I want to do some meal prepping. Do I have enough containers? I don’t want to use plastic anymore. I’m moving to glass. I’ll put those on the grocery list too.
Ugh, why am I thinking of all this random bullshit?
I stare up at the ceiling in the dark. I shouldn’t have had that afternoon nap today. It’s 3:00 a.m., and I’ve been wide awake for two hours. Blake is fast asleep beside me. His gentle breathing is a calming sound. Who knew that someone breathing beside you could be comforting?
I roll onto my side and face the wall with my back to him and hear his phone as it vibrates on his side table. I roll over and frown into the darkness.
Who would be texting him at this hour?
I lie back down and close my eyes. What if something’s wrong?
It could be an emergency.
I get up and walk around to his side of the table and pick up his phone. I walk out into the hallway with it so that I don’t wake him up. I go to swipe it on and put in his code, and it rejects it. I put his code in again.
Wrong passcode.
Huh?
I screw up my face in question and put the passcode in again.
Wrong passcode.
That’s weird.
I try it again.
Wrong passcode.
He’s changed his passcode on his phone. Why would he do that?
Hmm.
I make my way downstairs and flick the kettle on as my mind begins to go over the last few weeks. Come to think about it, he has been working late a lot recently . . . my stomach rolls as an all-too-familiar feeling falls over me.
Blake’s hiding something.
Two weeks is a long time to feel sick in the stomach.
It’s a long time to feel scared every time he picks up his phone; it’s even longer to have thoughts so dark in your head that you wonder why you even bother.
At first I thought it was in my head, and maybe it is. I hope to god it is.
But Blake’s phone is still locked, which can only mean one thing: he’s messaging someone he doesn’t want me to know about.
I’ll never be that woman who demands to know everything. I’m not jealous; I’m sad, because I thought maybe I’d just gotten a bad egg with the first one.
But maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m the one that’s not enough.
I stir the spaghetti Bolognese that I’m making as my mind races off on another tangent. It’s like I’ve become this superdetective again, analyzing everything that comes out of his mouth.
I want to believe that nothing is happening. I want this just to be a scar from my past relationship. But the reality is that things aren’t adding up.
And I hate feeling like this and being insecure.
I would rather be single.
I don’t want to ask him why he changed his passcode because then it will only give him a chance to lie to me, and I know as soon as he does that, our relationship is over.
Buzz, buzz, buzz, buzz. My phone vibrates on the bench, and I pick it up.
“Hi, babe,” Blake’s happy voice sounds down the phone.
“Hi.” My heart goes into my throat. Don’t say it; please don’t say it.
“I’ve got to work late tonight. The children’s ward is swamped. I’ll be late.”
“Okay.” I force the words out.
“Don’t wait up, okay?”
My eyes well with tears. “Sure.”