Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 99949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 99949 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 500(@200wpm)___ 400(@250wpm)___ 333(@300wpm)
After everything I’d told him about my darkest secrets, after all the times he’d smiled at me or touched me or laughed at something either I or one of the other guys in the family had said, I’d finally felt like I was able to keep my head above water for the first time in a long time. And then with one simple statement, it was gone. No, it was worse because it hadn’t been the guilt about Rabbit that had pushed my head back under the water and held it there.
It had been Theo.
And I hadn’t seen it coming.
I hadn’t even been preparing myself for it. If anything, I’d been certain the two weeks would turn into three, then four. I’d been steeling myself for all the terrible things he’d tell me about his past when he was ready.
Two fucking days.
Lincoln, stop. Just stop.
Rabbit’s voice in my ear had me jerking the wheel so hard to the right I almost ended up in the ditch. I slammed on the brakes and allowed the car to skid across the gravel that separated the pavement from the grass.
Just breathe.
That plea came from Theo, not Rabbit.
I let out a rush of air and sucked in some much-needed oxygen.
I sat there for a long time, the car idling and not a single car passing me. I thought back on the brief time Theo and I had spent together from the moment I’d agreed to his ultimatum of friends only. It had been such a short amount of time but there’d been no denying one blatant fact.
Theo had been free.
He hadn’t been acting. His smiles had been real. His laughs too. His questions about what I’d been like as a child had been because he’d really wanted to know. His excitement when he’d talked about a certain book or some odd, obscure fact he’d picked up from a random book had been real.
It had all been real.
But I wasn’t stupid. I’d seen him struggling whenever there’d been any kind of flare-up of desire between us. Sexually speaking, I couldn’t even begin to imagine what was happening inside of Theo when the outside of his body reacted to our proximity. I’d been careful not to put him in any position where he’d have to fight those demons, but I’d hoped deep down that someday he’d let me help him figure it all out. And hell, if all we could ever have was the friends with no benefits thing, I’d take it, because five minutes just sitting quietly next to Theo as we’d watched the sun rise had been better than any orgasm I’d ever had.
I was in love with him.
There was no other word I could come up with to describe how I felt about him. I was in love with him and had been for a while now. Even when he’d made me promise those things in the shower, I’d loved him. That’s why I hadn’t been able to fight him on any of it. I loved him and hadn’t wanted to lose him.
Well fuck. If I was going to lose him in the next minute or hour or day, it wasn’t going to be because I sat back and quietly watched him walk out of my life.
I slammed my foot down on the gas and yanked the steering wheel around, not caring that I could smell my tires burning in protest. I’d just gotten the car straightened out when my phone rang. A brief hope went through me that it was Theo, but he didn’t even have a phone and I doubted he’d call me if he did.
Cam’s name appeared on the screen that was built into the dashboard of the car.
“Hey, Cam,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
“Hey, Linc. Are you at home? I’m trying to get ahold of Riley and he’s not picking up. It keeps going straight to voicemail.”
“I’m not there but I should be in a few minutes. You know how kids are, Cam. Their cell phones are like an extension of their hand,” I said even as it hit me that Riley didn’t really have any friends in Pelican Bay yet and as far as I knew, he didn’t keep in touch with anyone back in Detroit where he’d once lived. Not to mention the kid idolized Cam and probably would have jumped out of the shower stark naked with shampoo running down his hair if he’d heard either Cam’s or Ford’s distinct ringtones. Both men were fathers to him. Fathers who’d taken him in when his own biological family had cast him aside.
“Yeah, it’s just…”
“It’s just what, Cam?” I prodded.
“It’s probably nothing but me being an overprotective dad and shit, but there’s been this guy who’s been hassling Sawyer. He’s a dangerous fucker, and even though I told him to leave town, I don’t think he’s the kind of guy who takes those kinds of messages lightly. There’s no reason he’d be at the house but…”