Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 68515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68515 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
“Hmm,” I said, unsure what to reply to that with. “It sounds like you lucked out.”
He walked toward me and my heart started to pound away inside of my chest.
He stopped just a few inches shy of actually being plastered to me—and holy wow, was the man big. From far away, he was tall and muscular. But compared to him being right up next to me? It was more than apparent that the tallness gene didn’t skip him.
Reaching over my head in the cabinet that only tall people could reach, he pulled down a stack of red Dixie cups.
Placing them on the counter next to my hip, he nabbed one and walked back toward whatever he’d been doing by the microwave earlier.
There, he poured some sort of liquid into the cup he’d just procured, then turned around and offered it to me.
I blinked at his proffered hand.
“Hot chocolate,” he said. “You look like you’re about to freeze and break in half.”
I snorted, reaching for the cup with my good hand. The one that wasn’t completely numb.
The cup was perfectly warm, and I moaned as I brought it up to my lips and took a sip.
“Damn, you give good hot chocolate,” I said as I took another hasty sip.
I wasn’t usually a hot chocolate fan.
Really, it always tasted chalky, and like a cheap imitation of the real thing when made with instant.
But Jeremiah’s? Wow.
“Make this at the shop sometimes.” He shrugged as if he hadn’t just made the best hot chocolate I’d ever had. Which was saying something, because I ate a lot of sweets with my line of work. I knew my shit.
“Well, it’s amazing,” I told him truthfully. “And that’s saying something for me, because hot chocolate is hard to make—at least in my honest opinion.”
He winked at me, then walked to the fridge and pulled out what looked like a cheese tray, as well as another beer.
I eyed the cheese, wondering if it was something I was allowed to have, too.
I’d just eaten, but everyone always had room for cheese.
He gestured toward it and said, “Help yourself. I’m just hungry after watching you eat that burger.”
I grinned. “I don’t share my food. I’m sorry.”
He snorted. “I don’t eat other people’s food. It’s rude, and I’m very particular about it.”
I usually was, too.
But there was just something about this man…
I watched as his muscular forearms held the tray steady as I made my selection and felt something in the pit of my stomach clench at the move.
The next ninety minutes was spent eating cheese and talking about everything under the sun, including Jeremiah’s book—a book about a man that had a ‘re-do’ on life. And what he chose to do differently. It was called ‘Where I Went Wrong.’
“I don’t know,” I said as I thought about it. “I don’t think that I would re-do anything. I mean… I’m where I want to be now. All of my life experiences have made me who I am. I mean, had I not dated my last boyfriend, I wouldn’t have found my dream job. That was the one and only good thing that I could say about dating him was that he’d put me in touch with his dad, who owned a business that is my line of work.”
I knew he wanted to ask me what my line of work was, but I could tell he was also trying to stay very neutral on getting to know me.
I could tell right away that this hesitancy that he was experiencing was likely due to his ex-wife, and all the leftover trauma that he had to deal with.
“I would,” he grumbled. “I don’t even care if it doesn’t give me the life I have today. I’d change the moment that I met my ex-wife, Rachel.”
His words hadn’t surprised me.
I’d seen them coming from a mile away.
“You can’t think of one good thing that being married to her left you with?” I wondered.
He crossed his arms over his chest, and again those muscles in his forearms caught my attention.
And right above his forearms, right across his left pec, was the name ‘Tiny.’ Something in which I was dying to ask him about.
“I used to think that my stepson, her son from a previous relationship, was a good thing. But she’d thoroughly ruined him before we got together. By the time that I came into his life and went about trying to fix him, he was well on his way to being an asshole.” He paused. “I don’t even know why I’m telling you this.”
I snorted. “You think that I wanted to tell you all about my previous life? You are making me talk about things that I haven’t even said to my best friend.”
He knew about my upbringing. He knew about my strict parents and me being kicked out at the age of seventeen—though not why. He also knew that I barely spoke with my sisters, and had a baby brother that I’d never met.