Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Rush was watching me, his bottom lip between his teeth as he held back a smile. “Cute.”
“What?” I asked.
“You’re doing it again,” he said, cocking his head to one side. “Nerding out about renovations. You really are a total construction nerd.”
I couldn’t help but smile, scratching the back of my neck.
“Dad wouldn’t have taken you up on any of that, by the way,” he said, shaking his head. “One thing about Dad was that he didn’t ask for help,” he said. “And another thing about Dad was that he didn’t exactly know how to finish projects he started.”
There was a sadness in his eyes that I’d never seen before. I’d always thought of Rush as such an independent person, jetting off to California to make a life for himself and never looking back. But I was sure he missed his dad, too. No matter how estranged they had been. As far as I knew, he didn’t have much family left, and he’d been an only child.
My heart ached. It made me want to pull Rush close, wrap him up in a blanket, and tell him everything was going to be okay. Not that Rush would want anything to do with sappy stuff like that.
I just had to make sure he didn’t hug me again like he had at the bar, which was the hottest thing I’d experienced in… months? Years? My skin had practically felt molten. It felt like my body just fit right into his. Like he was made to hold me.
Internally I was rolling my eyes. Made to hold me. Rush probably made everyone feel like that, considering how much of a charmer he was. That was his whole schtick. There was no reason I should have assumed the hug was anything special for him.
“I can tell that he didn’t finish many projects,” I said gently, focusing back on the house. “It looks like he was trying to knock out this wall between the living room and dining room, right? I think I remember him talking about that… shit, years ago, now.”
“Yes, I think a full wall used to be here,” Rush said, gazing up at the gutted portion of beams and plaster. “Now it’s just exposed, unfinished wood beams. And let me show you the worst part.”
He led me forward through the archway that led into the kitchen, and I couldn’t help but puff out a laugh.
“Oh, I see.”
“Yeah.”
Old Man Rushing had apparently tried to build a kitchen island, but it ended up being nothing more than a big wooden slab on top of similarly unfinished two-by-fours. Nails stuck out in odd places, pieces of wood were ragged and rough, and it seemed like you could get a splinter just from looking at the thing.
“It’s sweet that he was trying,” I said. “A lot of people are scared to do projects like this. He just needed a little help. This thing could topple over at any minute, though, I’m not going to lie.”
“I’m pretty sure if you leaned on it a little too hard, it would topple over,” Rush said. “There are patches of walls all around here where Dad either tested paint or re-plastered over drywall. The entire place looks like a DIY project that was never finished, and I want to turn it into something a little more livable. You know, for whoever does end up living here.”
I nodded once. “You’re definitely going to sell it?”
“I don’t exactly see myself here in Jade River,” he told me. “It’s fine, but I just need a little more…”
“Action?” I offered.
He puffed out a laugh, his dark hair gleaming under the light in the room. “From what I remember, this place has plenty of action and gossip, if you know where to look for it,” he said. He reached up and scratched the back of his neck, looking down at the ramshackle kitchen island. “No. I think I just like being far away from all of this. Where I grew up. It’s kind of painful to remember.”
There it was again—that tenderness that I never thought I’d see from someone who I thought was all gloss and cockiness and charm. I’d always thought he had the perfect teenage heartthrob life back in high school, but there was something else beneath the surface.
“Yeah. I get that,” I told him. “Every corner of this town holds some kind of memory for me, after living here my whole life.”
“Some of those memories aren’t so good,” he said simply. “That’s all.”
He didn’t seem like he wanted to talk about it much, but I wanted to comfort him, in any small way I could.
“Same for me, but probably in a very different way,” I said. “I remember year after year of feeling like my heart was being crushed every time I saw a man I was attracted to, knowing I was too far in the closet to make a move. Even worse was when I’d see an actual gay couple. I felt like I could never have that.”