Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 98736 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98736 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
“Your parents will miss you.”
“Meh, they’ll more than likely come to us.” She grins. “We’ll stay here. When we move back home, if you’re both still struggling like you are right now, then I think the two of you need to have a serious talk. I know he’s worried about Forrest never forgiving each of you, and sure, that’s a possibility, but this pain that you’re both in might be the lesser of the two evils.”
“I hate to think that might be the case. I love my brother. I love them both.”
“Four months,” she reminds me.
I nod. “I’m in. We get through this last stretch, get through graduation, and when the distance is no longer a factor, we’ll see what happens.”
“That sounds like a good plan to me.”
“Thanks, Roe. I know I’ve been a buzzkill recently.”
“I’m sure you’ll get your turn to repay the favor.”
“I doubt it. You’re going to learn from my mistakes and not get involved in a twisted mess like me.”
“We don’t know the future, but I know where to find you when I need you.”
I give her a hug, and we lock up and head to our rooms.
She’s right. The saying “only time will tell” rings true.
I hope time is what we need, because if not, my brother might get his wish. I might leave Ashby. I don’t know that I can see Roman every single day and him not be mine.
Chapter
Twenty-One
Roman
* * *
“Fuck me,” Forrest says, tossing his phone down on the table in the break room, where we’re all eating lunch. It’s a rare day that all five of us are here at the same time and our schedules align for us to eat together.
“I’ll pass,” Maddox says, taking a bite of his sub.
“Not my type,” Lachlan quips.
“Definitely not,” Legend agrees.
“What’s up?” I ask him. There is concern etched into his features. There isn’t much that would make my best friend react that way. I can’t help but wonder if something is up with her. Emerson has been really quiet this week. Hell, who am I kidding? She’s been quiet since she insisted on that stupid-ass rule that we can’t talk every day. I hate it, and if I thought I missed her before, it’s worse now.
“Emerson.”
My shoulders stiffen, and I try to keep the worry out of my tone. “Everything all right?” I hope that sounded casual, because on the inside, my stomach is in knots, coiled like a snake.
“She’s fine, but she’s not coming home.”
“What?” Legend asks. “What do you mean, she’s not coming home?”
“Ever?” Lachlan asks.
“Why?” Maddox asks.
He said she was fine. That doesn’t keep me from pulling my phone out of my pocket and checking for a message from her. There’s not one, but I’m not surprised.
At the end of January, she said we had to back off on the calls. It’s now the beginning of April, and I feel her slipping further away from me every single day, and I don’t know what to do with that. I know what it means for us to be together, but I can’t seem to let go.
My heart won’t let me.
So here I am going through the motions of life, while constantly thinking about her. If I’m lucky, I talk to her two to three times a week. That’s it. I went from hearing her voice every night before falling asleep and often throughout the day to talking to her two to three times.
I hate it. I hate every fucking minute of it.
I’ve tried really hard not to take that anger out on Forrest. It’s not his fault he wants what’s best for her. He just doesn’t know that what’s best for her is me. I have to remind myself that we didn’t tell him about us. I have to remind myself that I ended things to prevent a sibling war, which instead caused a raging out-of-hand war in my chest.
I fucking miss her.
With each day that passes, I realize that the decision I made, even though she agreed, was the wrong one. With everything inside me, I wanted to protect her from losing her only family, but what I failed to realize at that time, is that I am her family. The guys here at the shop, they’re her family. Monroe is her family. The family who chose her. Not because of bloodlines, but because of love.
Knowing that I could have been the cause of their rift, that I would be the one to cause her unnecessary pain, guided me in the wrong direction. We had a plan. I deviated from that plan after talking to Forrest that night. Maybe if I would have just told him that I was the man that would love her and spoil her and treat her like she deserves to be treated, he would have been pissed, but we could have gotten through it.