Total pages in book: 83
Estimated words: 79892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79892 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Take him home.
* * *
Summer couldn’t believe he’d found him.
And there were over a hundred yards of rushing water standing between them, the Mystic completely overrunning its banks and washing out the bridge.
With Fox’s car on the other side, the tail lights glowing red.
He must have stalled out, but...but...
Fuck.
He was right there, and so far out of Summer’s reach.
And if Summer waited, waited until the bridge was passable again, waited until he could cross over to the other side...
Fox would be gone.
Summer just...just knew it.
He stared through the windshield at those tail lights, pressing his lips together, asking himself. Asking himself if he could really risk it. If the Acura would make it through the flooding waters over the bridge without getting swept over the side, or stalling in the middle and leaving him stranded.
He didn’t know what to do, was about to do something so goddamned risky...
When the Camry’s driver’s side door opened, and Fox stepped out into the drenching rain.
He stood there for long, silent moments, and even if he was so far away Summer couldn’t see his expression...
Everything in his body language, miserable and stiff, said he knew.
He recognized Summer’s car.
And he gestured broadly, arms cutting through the rain, his mouth moving, a dark O against his pale face.
Summer couldn’t hear him. And he bolted out of the Acura, stepping out into wind that whistled over him, snapped through his hair, drove the rain into him like needles of ice.
Fox was shouting something.
Shouting across the river, over the storm, and Summer couldn’t quite make out what it was...
But he thought it just might be go back.
No. No, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t. His heart beat sick at the very thought, lurching and colder than the rain sluicing over him could ever be, dark and heavy with dread certainty.
If he turned back now...
He would never know where Fox ran to.
And he knew—
He could call and call and call again, beg, plead, but that phone would never answer, voicemail picking up and then going dead without even a recording, just a click and empty air that might hear him, but Fox never would.
Because Fox was afraid, Summer thought.
Not of dying, not of death, not of anything that might harm his flesh...
...but of anything that could touch a heart that had been shut away so long it had turned as thin and fragile as flower petals shut from the light, translucent and pale and ready to shatter at the slightest touch.
If Fox wanted to run so much, if he really couldn’t stand to let Summer need him, want him, love him...
Summer would let him go.
But not until Fox gave him the chance to at least, first...
Ask.
Ask, beg, plead.
And hope deep down...
That Fox truly wanted to stay at Albin, and stay with him.
There was only one thing for Summer to do.
Hell, the only thing he’d gotten good at when he’d left Omen for Baltimore.
Pushing through the rain, cold sluicing heavily over him, he stripped out of his shirt; it would only weigh him down, and he tossed it by the side of the road as he stepped onto the foot of the bridge, into the first few inches of floodwater.
His stomach constricted, his heart turning over.
He took a deep breath.
And, with Fox’s voice echoing over the storm, calling to him, warding him away, it didn’t matter when that voice was Summer’s siren-song and he couldn’t turn away...
He kicked his shoes off, and dove in.
* * *
Fox was going to kill Summer.
If Summer didn’t kill himself.
What was he doing?
Fox’s heart had nearly jumped out of his chest when he’d recognized Summer’s rental Acura.
Then plummeted as he’d stepped out and tried to warn Summer away from the bridge...
Only for Summer to strip his shirt and shoes off, and go diving right into the water.
Every nightmare Fox had ever had rose up to swamp him, locking his legs in place as ice shot through his veins and in his mind’s eye he saw Summer, beautiful bright Summer, sinking into black water and disappearing forever, no one to hold his hand, to reach for him, no one to save him, no one to—
Stop.
He was breathing in shallow, hyperventilating gasps, but he could still see Summer, and...and...
Summer was still on the bridge.
Holding fast to the railing, forging through with one hand sweeping through the water to drag him along, half-walking, half-swimming but with the railing of the bridge holding him steady to keep the overflow from sweeping him away, powerful movements practiced and sleek and smooth and so very fierce with determination.
Fox tried to find his voice. Tried to cry “Go back!” again before Summer was too far, before it was too late, before he couldn’t turn back—but he could barely manage a croak, standing there in the rain with it dripping down him in waves, frozen in place, his entire body numb as he helplessly watched the man he loved do only the second most reckless thing he had seen in his life.