Total pages in book: 122
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 115997 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 580(@200wpm)___ 464(@250wpm)___ 387(@300wpm)
Did that mean he felt whatever this pull was between us too? “So, I didn’t ruin your plans by upending mine?”
He shook his head. “There is nothing better I could possibly imagine than spending my last day stateside with you. As long as you stop mocking my cookies and cream, considering you have the ice cream tastes of an eighty-year-old woman.”
“Do not,” I scoffed in defense of my favorite flavor.
Last day stateside. He was leaving tomorrow. My stomach dropped.
“It’s butter pecan,” he teased. “It’s been around since the late eighteen hundreds. It’s like the grandmother of all other ice cream flavors.” He took a bite out of my own selection.
“It’s a classic.” I licked up the side of my cone, and his eyes flared, tracking the movement.
“I still can’t believe you’re here.” He shook his head, looking at me the same way I bet I was looking at him—with pure awe.
“Same.” I turned, and we continued to walk, meandering down the picturesque street.
“I’ve been here for a couple years now, so my presence isn’t that much of a surprise.” He took another bite. “You showing up, that’s some happenstance.”
Who did that? Actually bit their ice cream?
Someone who doesn’t have time to let it melt.
Then again, my eyes had been way bigger than my stomach when I’d ordered this. I threw away the cone and spotted a bookstore up ahead. “Are you still making your way through that list of books?”
“Slowly.” He took another bite, demolishing what was left. “It’s hard to find time to read between college classes and people shooting at you, but I’m making a dent.”
I halted, my eyes flying wide.
Nate turned, his brow furrowing. “Shit. I forget you’re probably not used to hearing stuff like that.”
“It’s fine.” I forced a smile. It wasn’t. Not even close. The thought of him being shot at was . . . incomprehensible.
“It’s not. Forget I said it.” He tossed what was left of his ice cream in the nearby trash and scanned the street around us. “I have an idea.” He held out his hand.
I took it. “Lead on.”
Two hours later, we sat on the wooden double swing on North Beach, Nate gently rocking us as my feet stretched over his lap to rest on the opposite railing. The one at my back dug in a little as I scoured the pages of Outlander, marking my favorite lines with neon-yellow highlighter as he did the same to Their Eyes Were Watching God, but I didn’t care.
I couldn’t remember ever having spent a more perfect moment in all twenty-one years of my life.
“I can’t believe that’s the book you chose,” he muttered, glancing my way before dragging the highlighter across one of his pages.
His idea had been . . . swoonworthy. He’d taken me into the bookstore and told me to pick one of my favorite books that I’d guess he hadn’t read yet, and he’d done the same, buying both and a two-pack of yellow highlighters.
“A little romance won’t hurt you.” A smile curved my mouth as the ocean breeze ruffled the pages of the thick paperback. “Besides, it’s being adapted right now. Comes out in August, I think. You’ll thank me then.”
“I’ll still be deployed in August.” The side of his hand skimmed my knee as he adjusted his hold on the book, and butterflies kissed the edge of my stomach. I was hyperaware of everything about him, from the subtly sexy way he curved the bill of his hat to the care he took while spraying me down with sunscreen so I wouldn’t burn in my jean shorts and the bikini top I’d changed into when we thought of the beach. “And you’ll be starting up classes, right?” He flipped another page, skimming the contents.
“Yep, at Georgetown,” I answered, choosing only the most romantic of lines to highlight and imagining his face when he got to those parts. He’d be half a world away.
“You don’t sound happy about it.” His head tilted to the side as he looked at me from under his hat. “From what I know, that’s a pretty stellar school.”
“It is.” I shielded my eyes from the sun with my hand to see his face clearer. “And it’s not that I’m not grateful to have been accepted; it’s just . . .” A sigh deflated my shoulders, and I looked out over the Sunday families playing on the beach.
He shifted, and his hands framed my face for a heartbeat when he set his hat on my head. “For the sun.”
“Thank you.” I smiled at the sweet gesture, my fingers skimming the brim. “I’ve never worn your sweatshirt,” I blurted. Shit, I should have taken my ADHD meds today, but it was a weekend, and I thought I’d just be flying, and they always killed my appetite, and sometimes I just wanted to snack for the fun of it, and now I was saying whatever came to mind.