Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 97369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97369 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 487(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 325(@300wpm)
I was wrong. No Milo.
Until … now.
There’s a knock at my door, and I sprint to open it, casting all self-control into an ocean of disregard.
It’s him!
“I was so worried.” I throw my arms around him.
Milo backs me inside, dropping his bag on the floor and kicking the door shut behind us.
“Why do you look so sad?” I press my palm to his face.
He slowly shakes his head, having not said a word yet. His mouth covers mine.
Our clothes are lost.
Our bodies entwine.
Milo takes me again and again, until his eyes finally close, his body relaxes, and he falls asleep with me in his arms. My head on his chest. And all I feel is this deep sadness.
Isn’t this it?
Our time?
No more obstacles?
I don’t understand.
“Morning,” Milo says.
Nestled on the sofa with a tall glass of iced tea next to me, I look up from my book. It’s almost noon. “Hey. I wondered if you were going to sleep all day.”
He stretches and yawns. “You wore me out last night.”
I grin. And he does too. It’s a friendly grin, but it’s not my Milo’s. Something’s missing.
“I have a Keurig. Make yourself a coffee, and there’s cinnamon in my spice rack. I was thinking about lunch. We could go out to lunch.”
He starts his coffee. “I was going to eat you for lunch.”
My cheeks fill with a good blush. I don’t know why. He did plenty of that last night. But in the light of day, in the wake of the past week, everything packs an extra punch.
“I’d like to meet your sister. Have you been to see her since …” I frown. “You know since everything happened? Surely Ty or someone told you where he was keeping her, right?”
Milo slowly twists off the lid of the bottle of cinnamon. “Yeah,” he says just above a whisper. “We should go see her.”
“Can we talk about Jolene?”
He shakes the cinnamon into his cup of coffee. “It’s not a favorite subject of mine, but what do you want to know?” Milo bends down and kisses me before sitting on the sofa, his body angled toward mine.
“Are you getting a divorce?”
He chuckles. “After last night, I hope so. I think we broke a few commandments.”
I roll my eyes. “You know what I mean. Have you discussed it with her?”
“Yes. It went something like, she’ll take everything, and I’ll keep the shirt on my back and maybe my boots. We’ll share custody of Benjamin. She only wants to see me on a need-to basis and never wants to see you again.”
I flinch.
Milo shakes his head. “Don’t. You’re not allowed to be shocked by that.”
“I … I’m not. I just wasn’t … I don’t know what I was or wasn’t expecting.”
“Her husband had sex with you the day after her wedding. And again the day before her uncle died.” He eyes me over his coffee mug while taking a sip.
“I love how you’re referring to yourself in the third person.”
“I’m trying hard to pretend it wasn’t me who married her.”
I half grin. “I know the feeling.”
For a few minutes, we sit in silence. Milo gazes out my apartment window while I pretend to read the words on the pages of my book. But I can’t.
“Why do you think he killed himself?”
Milo shrugs, keeping his gaze out the window. “He was disabled and miserable. Lonely. And filled with anger and resentment.”
“Who found him?”
“I did.”
“I’m sorry you had to see that.”
He nods once, gaze a little lost in the distance.
“How did Ty react?”
Tiny lines form along his forehead. “He … didn’t have much to say.”
“Did you really think you could take his life?”
Milo turns to me. “Who?”
“Uh … Fletcher. You said you were going to end his life. I think you said it for me, but do you think you would have been able to do it?”
Milo rubs his eye like there’s something in it. “For you, Indie? Yes.”
Is there a greater love than a man willing to take a life for you? I can’t imagine there is.
I snag his coffee and set it next to my book then straddle his lap and tease the wavy strands of his messy hair. “When did you know you loved me?”
His fingers slide into my belt loops, and he twists his lips.
“Was it one of the summers we spent our free time swimming in the pond and riding horses?”
Milo’s nose wrinkles. “What? You were like … twelve.”
“So.” I laugh.
“No. When I was twenty, I wasn’t having romantic feelings toward a twelve-year-old, despite Jolene accusing me of ‘grooming’ you.”
“She did?”
He nods.
“Bitch.”
Milo bobs his head noncommittally, but I know he agrees with me.
“If you say it was when I was eighteen, then I’m calling bullshit.” I narrow my eyes.
“The summer before you turned seventeen, I had moments of looking at you in ways that made me uneasy.”