Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 65948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 330(@200wpm)___ 264(@250wpm)___ 220(@300wpm)
“…thought I’d come say hi.” Matilda smiled. “My dad and stepmother wanted to come, but they started talking to someone over there. And I felt like maybe it would be overwhelming for you to meet them. They can be… a little much.”
I’d looked into Matilda.
Or, I’d had Wake, the unofficial official “leader” of our band of misfits, look into her.
What I’d found out had been quite surprising, but not in a bad way. At least, not where it could affect my girl.
Matilda was unwanted by her stepmother and she was a pariah among her family. Her stepmother went out of her way to make Matilda’s life utterly miserable. Her father, too absorbed in his work and his ‘other’ family, hadn’t noticed that his daughter from his ex-mistress was being treated like crap.
Her parents, from what I’d read, were very outgoing and had explosive personalities. And I was thankful that Matilda knew that after the long day that Luce had, her parents would be a little much for her right then.
Matilda knew Luce well.
“Thanks,” she whispered. “I swear I’ll go and meet them before they go back home. But… today has been a lot.”
I caught her hand up in mine and squeezed it. “You want to do dinner?”
I asked because she looked tired. As if she hadn’t slept in forever.
And, selfishly, I would love to take her home.
As long as she let me into her home with her.
“I’d like dinner.” She paused. “As long as it’s at Moe’s and I can have a quiet night. Mom, Dad, is that okay with you?”
Her mother and father smiled warmly at her, also knowing her anxiety was likely through the roof just like I did, and shared, “Anything. This is your day, not ours. Not to mention, we’ve been up since three this morning driving. Having an early night sounds like heaven right now.”
“You know,” my mother said carefully at my side. “I’m not sure how this’ll work out.”
Her and me, both.
But it was that kind of thinking that had me making the decision to call it off before it’d ever even started.
Now… after that kiss and subsequent groping session? Well, I didn’t think I could ever give up that again. The amount of serotonin running through my veins was more than I’d ever had before.
I looked at my mom, then grinned. “It’ll be fine.”
“Your brother’s gonna shit a dick,” Dad surmised eloquently.
That’s my dad. Always keeping it real.
You wouldn’t expect a nerdy guy like him to be so vulgar. But he was.
“That’s okay,” Vance, Luce’s dad, said. “At least she’ll be happy.”
I hadn’t even realized he was listening.
That was all that mattered, though, wasn’t it?
Not the fact that my brother would be upset. Or the fact that she’d once been married to my brother.
But as long as we were happy… who the fuck cared what happened before?
I knew that I sure the hell didn’t lose my shit when I thought about Luce and Braxton being together.
It was part of the past.
And I also knew that, in the end, I was the one winning here. Not him.
I got the girl.
Well, I hoped I had the girl.
Kissing her and discussing with her about wanting to be with her were two different things.
• • •
Dinner, dessert, and two hours of drinking coffee at the scarred Formica bar at Moe’s later, I found myself standing in Luce’s apartment, thinking about what we were going to do next.
Luce, however, didn’t seem to have such worries.
She was in her bedroom, changing into something more comfortable, while I stood in her kitchen and wondered if I was supposed to follow her or not.
I wanted to.
But I really didn’t want to push her past any limits today.
I…
She appeared in the doorway of her room, her face a mask of flushed, embarrassed red, as she looked at me with horror on her face.
“I need you to help me unzip.” She paused. “And this isn’t a prelude to me wanting sex—although, I would totally jump on that right now if you made a move…” Her face got even redder, as if she hadn’t meant to say that, but it’d come out anyway. “But I had this dress on which was already tight, I might add, when I got caught in a rainstorm on the way into graduation. The dress is one of those that’s dry clean only and shrink wraps on itself when it gets wet… and let’s just say that I can’t get myself out of it. Not without tearing it. Please? I need help.”
There was a lot of information there, but the only thing I could focus on was her ‘I would totally jump on that right now’ part of the interaction.
“Bain?” Luce pushed, causing me to blink and focus on her face.
“Yeah,” I rasped. “I can help.”
I moved toward her, my feet awkwardly heavy, and twisted my finger at her to turn around.