Total pages in book: 88
Estimated words: 84002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
“Good. I’m glad to hear it.” He leaned forward and pressed a quick kiss to Shane’s lips. Shane walked Van to the door and just like the night before, he was gone. The same way he’d be gone for good in a few short weeks.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Van hadn’t been able to sleep the rest of the night. He tossed and turned for a few hours before he just gave up.
He couldn’t stop thinking about his night with Shane—grilling, his art, the sex, and the photos. He glanced over at the entwined, colorful glass. Shane really was talented. Van believed there would be people out there who would love his craft. He was unique, as were each of his pieces. None of them had looked the exact same.
Was it truly something Shane did only for himself or did he just not think he had it in him for anything else?
He obviously didn’t have the answer to that, but he wanted it.
Van pushed out of the bed, grabbing his camera and laptop. Typically he used his desktop computer at home for that kind of thing, but he hadn’t wanted to bring that back to Last Chance with him.
He pulled the card from his camera, popped it into his computer and downloaded the pictures they’d taken—the ones for Annie he put on a flash drive before diving into Shane’s. The lighting was shit, which pissed him off. Shane deserved to be captured in the right lighting.
Still, they were incredible. There was an innocence…no, a vulnerability to them, that Van had never been able to capture before. There was a truth, an honesty to Shane’s photos, from the look in his eyes, which was filled with both the heaviness of his life, but also the happiness of his spirit. He didn’t let life beat him. He rolled with the punches and made the best of situations and cared for those he loved in ways Van was pretty sure were unique only to Shane.
Most people just weren’t that good.
He wasn’t.
“Fuck.” He shook his head, pushing his hair off his face. That was some pretty deep shit for so early in the morning. But the truth was, he hadn’t been lying when he said he liked Shane. He wanted to get to know him more. He wanted to get to know him in ways he never had with anyone else.
Oh yeah, too fucking deep for this early.
Van closed his laptop and stood up. After stretching, he made his way down the hallway to his father’s office.
The house was quiet, and had been every day since he’d been here. When he was a kid, it was never that way. His parents were always entertaining, or his mom was out, making sure everyone in town knew who the Sullivans were. They had to be involved in everything, because life was all about appearances and what everyone else thought about them.
His stomach automatically churned the second he stepped foot in the room that had been his father’s domain when Van had been a child. Well, the whole town had been, honestly, but this room was more him than anything else.
It was his favorite place to call Van into the room to smack him around.
It was where he liked to teach Van all about what it took to be a man, and all the ways he was too sensitive, too soft behind closed doors, to be one.
Jesus, he fucking hated him.
He looked in the corner of the room, to the boxes there waiting to be used, grabbed one and just started throwing shit inside—photographs, awards, plaques telling his father how special he was.
He riffled through papers and files and tossed those into boxes too.
His mother wouldn’t do it, but it needed to be done.
He wanted to purge every fucking thing that was his father. He’d burn the damn house to the ground if he could.
Van closed his eyes and shook his head, thinking about the letter he’d thrown into his suitcase. What was wrong with him? Why didn’t he get rid of the fucking thing?
Why was he wasting time thinking about his dad? He should focus on himself, on his mom, and if they could find the bridge between the two of them that had been buried behind years of pain and anger.
Before he drove himself crazy, he went downstairs and opened the fridge. He pulled out what he needed and began making breakfast. It didn’t take long for the bacon, eggs, and toast to be ready, and when it was, he went back upstairs and knocked on his mom’s bedroom door. It was cracked open and he saw that she’d already showered and dressed for the day. “Can you come downstairs with me? I made us breakfast. We need to talk.”
“Nice of you to come home last night.” She cocked a brow at him.