Total pages in book: 68
Estimated words: 64337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 214(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 64337 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 322(@200wpm)___ 257(@250wpm)___ 214(@300wpm)
The inner voice is right.
This isn’t over until it’s over, and I haven’t even begun to fight.
Chapter 16
SEVEN
The only thing better than the best view in the world?
Having someone you love beside you to share it with.
I love this woman. I love her so much, I’m probably going to have to have a lobotomy to forget about how incredible it feels to be with her. But I’m a firm believer in the maxim that if you love something, you have to set it free.
Binx deserves to be free to find a man who’s closer to her own age, who can give her everything she wants, including children and a life partner who can keep up with her for the next twenty to thirty years. The memories we’re making right now are all we’ll ever have, so I’m determined to enjoy the hell out of these two days with the sexiest, funniest, best woman in the world.
“So, what do you think?” I ask. “Does the surprise live up to the hype?”
Binx turns to look at me over her shoulder, her eyes shining and the afternoon sun catching the red in her dark brown hair, making it glow around her face.
She’s so fucking stunning, I lose the ability to process language as she replies, and have to ask her, “Sorry, I…” I shake my head, hoping to clear it. “Can you say that again?”
She swallows, her throat working before she says, “It’s stunning, Seven. I had no idea there was a view like this anywhere around here.” She glances back over the edge of the bluff overlooking the gorge below and the rock formations on the other side. “It’s just…gorgeous. No pun intended.”
With the river winding through the center of the valley below and the clear day making the view stretch on for at least a hundred miles, my lookout spot is really showing off. Still, when I showed Sprout this same view a few weeks ago, she wasn’t impressed. She agreed it was pretty, then promptly asked if we could hike down to the bottom of the waterfall and look for salamanders in the pool below.
But she’s just a kid. Kids take beautiful things for granted sometimes. They can’t help it. They haven’t had enough experience with the ugliness in life to realize how truly special beauty is.
“This is church to me,” Binx whispers, a reverence in her tone that makes my chest ache. She gets it. She really does. “This is what you’re supposed to feel in church, just…humbled by the beauty of creation and how lucky we are to get to live in it, even for a little while.”
“Yeah.” I loop my arm around her waist, my soul exhaling a sigh of relief when she leans into me, resting her head on my shoulder. “If church was like this, I wouldn’t have snuck out the back every Sunday to smoke in the woods with my friends.”
“Gross,” she says with a soft laugh. “I can’t believe you smoked as a kid.”
“Says the woman who smokes as an adult,” I say, pinching the side of her hip.
“I don’t smoke, not really. I have a sweetly-scented clove cigarette once in a great while, as a source of comfort in times of trial. It’s different.”
“Why do they give you comfort?”
She hums, seeming to consider the question. “I don’t know. Maybe because it reminds me of being a teenager out on the roof, daydreaming of a time when I’d be free to live my life however I wanted to live it.” She chuckles. “Or maybe because smoking drives my parents absolutely batshit crazy, and a part of me really loves doing things to annoy them? Even if they don’t know about it? Probably something mature like that.”
I grunt. “I get that. I think I smoked for some of the same reasons. And because I was a twelve-year-old idiot.”
“Ugh, you’re right. I should outgrow it. Maybe I will someday, when the last of my stash is gone. You can’t buy cloves in the U.S. anymore. I have to order them from overseas in bulk and store them in my freezer to keep them from going bad. It’s a whole thing.”
“Why can’t you buy them in the U.S.?” I ask, sincerely worried now. “Because they’re even worse than normal cigarettes?”
“Oh, yeah,” she says without missing a beat, “they’re awful for you. Really super bad, tons of tar and all that garbage.”
“Then stop, please. Right now. I need you to take good care of this gorgeous body,” I say, adding when she laughs, “And what about Jerry? How is he going to get around if you’re too busy wheezing to take him to see cool things?”
She looks up at me, a wry smile twisting her lips. “Okay, fine. I’ll quit. I’ll toss them when I get home. Are you happy now?”