Total pages in book: 115
Estimated words: 111685 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 111685 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 558(@200wpm)___ 447(@250wpm)___ 372(@300wpm)
It took fifteen minutes. Stone took his time, lingering on pages of people he remembered. He stopped, found me in the normal school section, then flipped around. “What the hell? Weren’t you on mock trial or some shit like that?”
I sat in my desk chair. “Yearbook Committee. I was the junior editor when you were a senior.” That’s what he’d been thinking of.
He turned, thumbing through the pages until he found the yearbook staff. I wasn’t there. “What the hell, Dust?”
He wasn’t going to find it. It’d explain everything.
And I couldn’t believe I was going to tell him, but I said with a slight nod, “Last page.”
He frowned at me, then bent his head and flipped to the back of the yearbook.
He saw it, stilling. “Dusty.” A soft one from him.
“I was never popular, but small town, small school. Last year. Everyone was sentimental, so I was surprised that I had to even reserve an entire page for her. But I did.”
I didn’t tell him the sad truth about what he read…the truth that she actually didn’t write that in there. I had.
“Fuck.” Another soft curse from him, his head bent and he was reading.
I knew the entire thing by heart. It’s why I brought the yearbook with me
I moved to the floor, leaning back against the wall and pulling my knees up to my chest. “She always told me she wanted to sign my senior yearbook. Not the junior one. Sophomore one. Freshman one. My last one. It was a big deal to her.”
“Your mom died in January.”
I nodded. “The night you won the football championship.”
“Yearbooks don’t get printed till end of April.”
Yeah…
I looked up, locking eyes with him. “I traced her letter in there. She asked me to.”
His eyes closed. His head fell. His shoulders slumped. “Shit, Dusty. Shit.” He moved in a flash. The yearbook was set on my desk and he had me up in the air, his arms around me. He moved back to my bed, and I was on his lap. His arms folded around me, and his head bent down to my shoulder. He breathed out, his air tickling my neck.
We sat there.
This hug wasn’t for me. It was for him. And it was the most intimate hug or touch I’d had from Stone, but it didn’t make my skin crawl. It felt oddly…nice. Familiar again. Like a memory that propelled us back to our childhoods, and I didn’t know why I kept thinking about that stuff. It was so long ago. We’d moved past all that, but his chin was propped on my shoulder when there was a knock on my door.
I started to stand up. His hand tightened on me, holding me in place.
I tried again. He kept me in place again.
Sagging back down, I admitted defeat. “Yeah?”
The door opened. Nicole’s head popped in and her eyes almost popped out. “Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude—”
“You’re not.” Stone spoke almost lazily, no trace of the brief moment we’d just had. “What’s up?”
She hesitated, biting her lip. Her hand gripped on the doorknob, and she kept looking over her shoulder. Coming to a decision, she shot inside and shut the door, turning the lock. “Sorry.” She flashed us a grin, right at the same time as we heard footsteps running to the door and banging.
“Hey!” That was Dent. Or Nacho. I couldn’t decipher their voices yet.
Nicole yelled through the door. “Let me talk to her, yeah? Stone went out the back door. He’s not even in here.”
Dent/Nacho harrumphed. “Bullshit.”
Stone was grinning, tucking his head behind me and rubbing the bridge of his nose to my shoulder blade. It was sending tingles down my back. Goosebumps were breaking out over my arms, too. But enduring the shivers, I remained.
“I’m not lying, and she’s crying. Back off.”
“She’s crying?” We all heard a soft curse muttered. “Okay. Sorry about your car, Dusty.” A brief moment later, we heard his footsteps going up the stairs.
Nicole fixed us with a look, one eyebrow raised. She eased down into my desk chair. “Nacho came down because he wanted to invite Stone to hang out, watch the game tonight.”
Stone cursed. “I should be watching that at my place.”
Nicole went on, “And I came down to warn you that they have invited everyone. Literally everyone. You guys might want to sneak out in the next three minutes, or you’ll get swarmed by fans.”
Stone nodded, his hands easing on me and then starting to lift me off of him.
I stood.
He said to me, “Grab the rest of your stuff.” He was looking around. “You have an extra bag? I can stuff whatever you need in that.”
I didn’t really have much, but since I couldn’t bring myself to look at them, I pointed to the pictures on the wall. “Those.” I turned for the bathroom.