Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 81423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81423 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 326(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
We pulled away again, and then…his hand was on the bench between us. I scooted mine closer, he did the same, and we locked fingers and held hands.
And talked.
All night.
We watched the sun rise, and I wondered if this one was better than the one he’d sung about.
“I should go,” Remington finally said.
“Yeah, me too. I have class in a few hours.”
He let go of me and stood, his eyes avoiding me. Was this goodbye? I didn’t want it to be. We’d just met, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to date him and have a boyfriend and shit like that—hell, I didn’t know if he did either—but I knew I didn’t want this to be goodbye. “Can I have your number?”
He looked at me…and frowned. Totally not the response I was looking for. But then he said, “You’d want it?”
“I want to see you again.”
“I don’t…I don’t know if this is something I’m ready to do again. I didn’t expect it. You’re really hot, maybe the most beautiful guy I’ve ever seen, and I’m just…me, but…I’m not out, and I want music. More than anything, I want to be a musician, and I don’t know how it will go if I’m…with a dude. If that’s even what you want? Music and my family are everything to me.”
His answer made me want him more. Here was this guy who didn’t realize how fucking incredible he was. Who didn’t see how strong he was, how alive and passionate, and how he’d turned my world upside down in one night. And he wanted to see me again. I could feel it. But he was worried about his family and his art.
And I felt like it might kill me if I didn’t see him again, because he was so different. So totally and completely himself and honest. “Well, I’m not saying I want to hit up pride marches and tell everyone I have a boyfriend, or hell, that I even want one. I’m not ready for all that shit either, but I…” I wanted him. I wanted him in this stupid way that was embarrassing and unsettling.
“Okay,” he said, and I wasn’t sure exactly what he was answering, but he gave me his cell number and I gave him mine. We walked to his car so I could get my backpack, and then we said goodbye.
CHAPTER ONE
Remington
So this was Havenwood… I just wished I wasn’t seeing it from the side of the road with a broken-down car. The whole incognito thing had seemed a good idea in my head. I needed to write, needed time…space…to breathe…and that was hard to do as Remington.
I basically didn’t even have a last name anymore. Just Remington was sexier, or so my manager and record label had told me.
Not that I was complaining. How could I complain when I got to do what I loved? When I got to write, to create and sing and make art, all while supporting my family; when I had more money than I knew what to do with.
But it didn’t feel the way I thought it would. Not anymore. Not in a long time.
I was even more alone. Even more of a fake, a liar. And I was also a really maudlin motherfucker who thought, Hey, let me get a piece-of-shit car like the one I’d been forced to drive as a teenager. That’s a great idea. No one would recognize me. And now I was stranded on the side of the road, in a town I had no business being in, on my way to an old fixer-upper house I’d bought without seeing, where I hoped to fall in love with music again. All this while still mourning the guy who got away. The one I’d let walk away, years ago. The one who had become living, breathing music to me—passion, love, laughter, everything that was good.
My whole life, that had been music.
Then it had been him.
Yeah, I really needed to get over this shit. It was my own damn fault, but I’d been known to get lost in my head, in my feelings, and not know how to get out of them.
So I stood there, leaning against the car as I waited for the tow truck to arrive.
When I heard wheels on gravel, I lowered the baseball cap on my head, as if that would make a difference. People would recognize me or they wouldn’t. I was hoping that in a small town like Havenwood, the majority of people would fall into the latter category. The one good thing about not being a head-turner was that I could get by unnoticed. Most of the time, people would do a double take when they realized who I was.
When I looked up, it wasn’t the tow-truck driver, but a local police car. A guy got out—blond, around my age. He was really sexy and had a kind smile as he walked over. “Having a bit of trouble here, I see.”