Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 94546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94546 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 378(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“Oh, Merrick.” The tears I swore I wouldn’t shed again pool in the corner of my eyes when I spot several famous Seattle landmarks on the silver keychain dangling off his index finger. “It even has HQ on there.”
“It does,” he agrees, his smile not as large as his big, kind eyes. “And the Wheel, Space Needle, and if you look closely, you can see the Aquarium too.”
I squint my eyes, falsely portraying that my eyesight isn’t as good as it is, before saying, “You can too. Very cool.”
“It is. But that doesn’t mean you can’t come see them for yourself occasionally. I’ve missed seeing your smiling face every day the past month. Now I have to go years on end.”
“It won’t be years. I’ll be back. Eventually.” My last word is a whisper.
It should hurt more going back to Jersey than it does contemplating a return to Seattle, but for some reason, it doesn’t. I lived here for three years before I met Jack, but now I can’t look at a single landscape without picturing him in it.
Don’t get me wrong, the memories are good, but it hurts to know they’ll never be replicated.
It wasn’t just Merrick’s vacation Jack kept his word on. His pledge not to see me again has been stringently upheld.
“I better get going. Caleb is finishing stacking the moving truck as we speak.” I rub Merrick’s arm before deciding it doesn’t reflect how much I appreciate him. He didn’t talk when I entered the ferry with a flood of tears down my face a month ago. He just sat next to me in silence before shadowing my walk home, so he knew I made it there safely. Then Caleb took over his watch.
Fitz offered me a ride home, but since I assured him his focus needed to remain on Jack’s emotional well-being, he handed me some money for transportation, then gingerly entered the elevator I’d just fled.
Merrick is shocked when I hug him, but he’s quick to return my embrace. “Don’t become a stranger.”
“I won’t. I promise.”
After a hug long enough to gain a handful of suspicious glares, I step back, wave goodbye like an idiot, then commence my walk home. It is odd to be out and about at this time of the day. I’ve barely left my apartment in the past month, but whenever I did, it was usually at night when I wanted to see the stars.
Air whizzes out of my nose when I enter the landing at the front of our apartment. Silas’s blood was cleared away a long time ago, but the confusion over what happened to him hasn’t lessened any. There were no reports of his assault or Jack’s arrest in the papers. It is as if their confrontation never occurred.
I guess it’s easy to manipulate the media when you’re a man of Jack’s wealth and power. He even twisted our story to make it seem as if it were nothing more than a work association. As far as the media is concerned, I was at the gala as Jack’s assistant.
Yes, that hurt, but it was better than the alternative. He could have told them why we broke up, and I’d be as hated by this side of the country as I am the other side.
“Oh my God, Caleb. I told you to wait until I got home,” I mutter when my entrance into our almost empty apartment occurs with the bottom of a box falling out. It is full of paperwork we don’t need but Caleb can’t seem to give up. He has a bad habit of keeping things no one wants to see more than once.
Such as the black and gold invite on the top of the stack.
“I can’t believe you kept this.”
I twist the invitation I found in the bouquet of flowers Silas arrived with that morning a little over a month ago after I sent it flying across the room. It is for a secret club that supposedly costs millions to join but only after being endorsed by one of its members.
Since I assumed that was the club Silas was intending to make me pay for my grandfather’s crimes, I tossed the invite into the bin. I had wondered where it went when I failed to notice it at the top of the rubbish when I cleaned up the mess my tantrum caused.
“You never know, you might need it one day.”
After rolling my eyes at Caleb’s reply, I gather the documents into a neat pile, then place them on the top of the box he’s wrangling. “What’s left?”
My heart is pained when he mutters, “Jess took down the last of the boxes from your room, so it’s just the laundry basket full of food and you.”
The thought of leaving Jess hurts me more than I can explain. Even with it being my fault that she is unemployed, she’s never once blamed me.