Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 41373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 207(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 138(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41373 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 207(@200wpm)___ 165(@250wpm)___ 138(@300wpm)
Nobody ever came to see me, and if it was my sister, she certainly would have called beforehand.
But another knock came a moment later. I grabbed my mug and made my way over. My heart was somewhere near my throat as I swung the front door open.
Rowen looked like a fallen angel.
Again, I could tell he’d been crying, even though he was doing his best to put on a composed expression. His hair was whipped by the breeze, falling across his head in a swoop that should have been illegal for how attractive it made him look.
And those eyes. So genuine, even in moments where he wouldn’t tell me a damned thing about himself. Right now I swore I was looking right into his soul, and something in there was in deep pain.
“I know you probably don’t want to see me,” he started, his voice just a little hoarse. “But I can’t be back at that guest house right now, and the bar was making me crazy, and I don’t know all that many other places to go in this town—”
“I’m glad you’re here, Rowen,” I interjected, and I hoped he could tell that I meant it. “Just come inside. Please.”
“I don’t deserve a friend like you,” he said softly as he stepped inside.
Is that what we are?
Friends?
The whiskey was already hitting my blood, and I’d had about enough of not telling Rowen what was on my mind.
He didn’t have to be real with me.
But I was going to be real with him.
“Listen,” I said as I shut the door behind us. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, but I do know that you deserve happiness and friendship and whatever the fuck else you want in life. And I’ll be here, even if you don’t want to tell me shit about yourself—”
“I left New York because my parents are in prison,” he blurted out, standing beside my Christmas tree.
Pain was written all over his face, and in an instant I froze, tiny puzzle pieces starting to come together in my mind.
Rowen swallowed, running his fingers through his hair. “They embezzled. A lot. There was tax fraud. Those Sorinelle scumbags that the guy at the bar was talking about earlier tonight? That’s them. That’s me, Shane.”
His voice trembled on the last few words.
The puzzle was forming even more clearly in my mind now, and my heart was as heavy as an anvil.
“Rowen…”
“I didn’t want to tell you, because you’re the first person who has actually seemed to like me for me in such a long time,” he said. “I meet people often enough. But I haven’t felt like I feel with you. Even before the fucking scandal, people saw me as the silver spoon acting school kid, being fed success only due to my parents. And now… now I’m nothing. Worse than nothing. I’m hated for things I didn’t do.”
I shifted on my feet, taking in everything Rowen was saying.
I’d known he wasn’t telling me something, but I never could have imagined it would be something like this.
“I—I’d worried that maybe you had a secret life back in New York,” I whispered. “That you had a wife and a kid, or something. Or that you were just a player who wanted to keep everything separate from… from me.”
He puffed out a short, bitter laugh. “Nothing like that. I’m just a failure, plain and simple.”
I furrowed my brow. “How could you say that?” I asked, setting down my mug and taking a step closer to him. “How the hell is it your failing when you said yourself you didn’t know your parents were doing this?”
“Because my life’s dream is dead, because of them,” Rowen said, shrugging. “Nobody in the acting world believes that I’m innocent. They think I must have known. Must have been a part of it. And even if they don’t, they just don’t want the Sorinelle name attached to any project of theirs.”
I swallowed past a tightness in my throat.
I could see clearly what he must be going through. It was true—in the professional world, nobody wanted to be associated with a bad name, even if the person in question was as innocent and amazing as Rowen.
His life back in the city really was fucked.
“From the moment my parents were found out, I’ve felt this… empty feeling,” Rowen said a moment later. The quiet shake in his voice was audible again, and my heart felt like it was reaching out directly toward him. Aching to fix his problems, and knowing I couldn’t.
“I’ve felt empty a lot recently, too,” I whispered.
Day after day, it felt like things in the world were only getting worse, and there was nothing—nothing I could do to stop it.
“And for the last few weeks, with you,” Rowen said, “the only thing that has made me feel good is something that’s… fake.”