Total pages in book: 140
Estimated words: 134045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134045 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 670(@200wpm)___ 536(@250wpm)___ 447(@300wpm)
And he was wearing frickin’ jeans. I was in my clothes from work and was roasting from standing outside for less than five minutes. I would have been a sweaty, disgusting mess if it weren’t for the fact that my car was cool and comfortable with functioning air conditioning.
Another thing to be mad at him about, the fact I couldn’t feel the cooling blast of air on my face without thinking of him.
In addition to not being sweaty, like at all, he seemed bigger. His biceps were straining the hems of the tee, muscles of his arms seeming sharper, more defined. And they had been plenty defined before.
It was his face that held the biggest change. His previous sharp, clean-shaven jaw was covered in a trimmed, short, dark beard. It made him look wild. It made him look sexy as all hell. Especially when paired with his dark shades and the fact his hair had grown out a little so it curved around his neck.
I itched to run my hands through it. To feel what it would be like to kiss him with that beard. But I didn’t have the right to do that. To touch him. Kiss him. He made that clear.
His shades had run over me in much the same way. With a hunger that was visible, even with the sunglasses covering his eyes. It was etched in his body. In his tight stance. The way his hands were fisted at his sides.
I wasn’t sure if it was because he liked what he saw or because he didn’t. I wasn’t exactly at my best. I’d been working all day. I hadn’t slept well the night before because I hadn’t been sleeping well for the past month. I knew there were dark circles under my eyes but they were nowhere near as bad as they were when I first woke up because Rosie had stocked not only my closet, but my makeup drawer too. With all sorts of magical, beautiful and luxurious products. But the concealer was epic. It made me look halfway normal, like I wasn’t falling apart.
But I was.
It was a sad thing, that it was mostly because of Lance. I’d managed to take pretty good care of myself even in the midst of the worst with Robert, especially after I’d left him.
But Lance took something too big with him. Left a huge hole that I couldn’t eat around, swallowing hurt too much, so I’d dropped weight. A worrying amount, I knew. Enough for Karen and Eliza to constantly invite me for dinner and do their level best to shove food down my throat.
The same thing happened at work, Bobby changed the specials especially so they were all my favorites.
I wanted to eat, I didn’t want my clothes to hang off me, I didn’t want my friends and family to be worried about me, I didn’t want my physical health to be impacted by an emotional sickness, mostly I didn’t want Nathan to see this. To his credit, he hadn’t noticed. Because he was a kid, and because he was working through his own hole that Lance had left.
So the work uniform I was wearing was no longer snug on the thighs or ass. Even the chest area of my top was loose.
My hair was thankfully healthier than it had ever been, thanks to more of Rosie’s products that made it impossibly shiny, even piled up in a bun on top of my head that I had no idea what it looked like because I’d done it in the car on the way home, securing it with one of Nathan’s pencils as my hair tie broke.
My face, despite how gaunt it looked, actually looked good. Rosie, Lucy, and Polly had all been regular visitors the past month. Lucy bought all sorts of skincare that ‘didn’t work for her,’ Rosie came with wine so we could do face masks, Polly came out either with the kids or alone and we did yoga in the back yard that was slowly becoming my favorite place to be. Mostly because Polly always brought plants with her. I even splurged on some, since the rent Keltan was charging was significantly less than the last place, which I knew wasn’t right but it seemed like I’d won some kind of battle to let me pay the rent at all. I was determined to make it feel like home, considering what little progress had been achieved on our old place. So my weekends, days off and afternoons had been spent outside, my skin deepening even more in color because of this.
That combined with the awesome skincare and new makeup I had on made me look good. Not happy, no makeup was that good.
I wasn’t sure if the hunger painted on Lance’s bearded face was due to my current appearance. It was more than that.