Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80495 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
“Maybe?” A water droplet falls from her hair and lands on her eyebrow right when she raises it at me.
“I want to be the guy you reach for at night. I want to be the guy you reach for, period. I want to be a man worthy of your trust. I want to…I want to tell you that I do feel things. I’m just a person, just a guy who has gotten it wrong for a long time now. Not because of the money or anything like that, but because it sucks having people you love die. It messes you up. It doesn’t matter that I got help for it. I promised myself I wouldn’t go through that again. I guess that’s cowardly as hell, and if I heard someone saying these things, I’d probably laugh at them and tell them to balls up.”
“Does ballsing up work? As a woman, I’m genuinely curious.”
“I have no idea. Any therapist would say it’s macho talk and bad advice. But I have no advice. I have a lot of money and properties, investments, and a company, but that’s about it. I’m just built up on the outside and not much at all on the inside. That’s what I’m offering. If you’re still…if you’d like to have me.”
She stands still for half a second, and then she steps forward, wrapping her fists in my shirt and dragging me to her. “You’re soaking wet,” she chides me before she threads her hands around my neck and pulls my face down. I get water all over her, raining like a second cloud inside the porch. She’s right. I’m a human shower. “I once said you should choose forgiveness and happiness above anything else and that it should be allowed to triumph over bitterness and hate. I want to choose that now. I am choosing that now, Beau. I—”
I can’t stop. I might be a human rainshower, but I have to kiss her anyway. If I don’t have my lips on hers, I’m not going to make it another minute. I’ve made it far too many hours and days and weeks that turned into months, throwing myself into anything and everything I could to banish this woman from my head and life, but it didn’t work. I couldn’t cut out the memories. I couldn’t cut out the want and desire. I couldn’t cut out the fact that once I had something more, I wanted more and more and more of her. I wanted more of her kindness, her goodness, her warmth.
I kiss her cheek, and she tilts her face so I can have her lips. I take them hard, kissing her the way I know she likes to be kissed. My hands grasp her hips over the rain slicker, and her lips open up for me. I thrust my tongue into her mouth, and she whimpers. One leg comes up, and she tries to hook it around me to get closer.
“Jesus. Wow. I’ve had the drinks done forever. I was waiting for you two to wrap it up, but then you both apparently decided you don’t hate each other and want to get it on, and that’s just—not on the porch. Please. My eyes are bleeding.”
We spring apart, but Ignacia takes my hand. “I truly wanted to find you, but I couldn’t. I’ve been hoping that one day you’d show up on my porch, giving me a codeword.”
“What’s that?” I don’t have it. Shit, I don’t…I’m not ready to say I love her. I don’t even know how to love someone. I need a slower introduction. I need her to teach me, break me into it, and guide me to it. I need her gentle and patient instruction. I need…I just need all of her for as long as I draw breath. I know that. Right here, right now. Does that count as love, even small dose love or small little love?
She stands on her tiptoes to brush my cheek with her lips. They’re still too cold. I want to kiss the rain off them all over again, kiss the heat back into her. “It’s Sam,” she whispers in my ear.
“Sam.” I brush back the wet tendrils of hair, cupping her face.
“The drinks are getting coooooolddddd,” her sister sings from the door before slamming it shut.
“You’re a bad influence, you know,” Ig—Sam goads me, taking my frigid fingers in hers. I’ll be warm again in no time if I can just sit and bask in her glow.
“How’s that?” Well, how am I not a bad influence? It’s her goodness that’s rubbed off on me. It’s her goodness that brought to the surface what little humanity I had left and magnified it to the point where I could believe in it again.
“I can’t stop calling my cat an absolute unit. She’s started to answer to that name now,” Sam chides.