Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68390 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 342(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
On that note, I drain the pasta, spoon meatballs on top, and top both our plates off with sauce and more than a hearty sprinkle of parmesan cheese. You can never have too much parmesan. Unless you had all the parmesan. Well, nah, even if I lived in a house of parm and bathed in a bath of parm, I’d probably still think it wasn’t enough parm.
We sit down at the table across from each other. The meatballs are still hot, but that’s not why I hesitate to start eating. It’s more the fact that we’re doing this like it’s a thing. Having dinner together, ending our day together, starting out day together, solving problems along the way. I had my students and my work, Sterling had his work, and we’re still here now.
“Do you think it could work?” I didn’t want to ask him, but it finally came out. I guess I couldn’t keep it burning up inside any longer.
Sterling instantly looks more frazzled. I regret wrecking dinner before it even started.
I put up a hand. “Hold that thought.”
Our food can wait a hot minute. It needs to cool down anyway. I race to the living room and grab my guitar. Throwing the strap over my shoulder, I launch into one of the songs I haven’t even written down yet. It’s just been in my head, percolating around in there. A sad, mellow love song that certainly isn’t about me and Sterling and wasn’t inspired by him at all. I didn’t have him in my head in the least when I was writing it. Being totally honest here. Mmhmm, totally.
The way he cocks his head is adorable, but the way he’s instantly tuned in with everything else forgotten is…just wonderful. He focuses on my singing with the kind of single-minded intensity he would have if I were there auditioning to be signed to his label. It makes my belly flutter even while I’m singing and strumming and putting the final touches on a song that I probably won’t even remember how it’s supposed to go when I go to put it on paper.
Maybe it’s best that way. Maybe it’s best that right here, right now, it was sung just for us. Not everything has to be written down. In fact, the best songs are probably the ones that never get sung.
That sounds a lot like dad wisdom right there.
Except he’d probably say, “They aren’t sung because they stay in your heart, and the heart is the best place of all for anything that matters.”
When I’m done, I watch as his eyes slowly flicker back open. I don’t even know when he closed them, but the way he looks at me is utterly arousing. It makes my toes, my nipples, and my clit all clench up. I’ve never seen anyone more beautiful in my entire life.
The crazy thing is Sterling is looking at me the exact same way.
Did he look like this the first time he heard my song? The one that bound us together? The one that was fated to bring him here four years later?
I set the guitar aside and silently sit back down. I pick up a meatball, blow, and take a bite. It’s basically wonderment from a bag. This company has the seasoning down perfectly.
“Wow,” Sterling hums when he tries one of his. “I feel like whoever made these seasoned them perfectly.”
Gah. What does it say about us that we’re having synchronized thoughts? What does it say when seeing that hint of a smile turn up his lips makes me want to keep making him smile? It’s a bit of an all-encompassing desire for me to see him happy.
Something behind my breastbone swells.
It’s hot in here. I made it too hot by cooking. So I jump up and race to the new thermostat. It’s still such a crazy novelty for me that I can just go to the wall and adjust the temperature to my liking, and it happens pretty much instantly. I hear the humming as the AC unit starts up outside. I turn to sit back down, but Sterling is here. Right here. Like a step behind me. My eyes shoot straight to his T-shirt, to the set of his shoulders, the muscles that trail down his arms starting under the thin fabric, to the ones I can see where the sleeves end, the ropey bands twining down to his hands and resting just below his hips. His hips, where his jeans hang low, and that T-shirt do other fabulous things like highlight the hard six-pack beneath.
It instantly heats me up to the point where even if it were glacial in here, no amount of AC would cool me back down. His hand shoots up, and he rakes it through his hair in one of those oh hell motions, and then he reaches for me.