Total pages in book: 184
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186756 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 934(@200wpm)___ 747(@250wpm)___ 623(@300wpm)
But still I blurt out, “If we’re coming full circle, then after I asked you to touch my tits, I also asked you to kiss me.”
I did.
And… And I think it’s okay.
It’s okay if he kisses me. Because it will be a goodbye kiss.
It will be a kiss to end things.
And then tomorrow when Shepard comes back, I can get a new start. A new beginning.
It makes sense, doesn’t it?
“No.”
“What?”
“I’m not. Going. To kiss you,” he says slowly, enunciating every word as if I won’t get it.
As if he needs me to get it.
My heart cracks and I duck my head down.
Because he rejected me again. He rejected me for the thing I shouldn’t have asked him in the first place. I should have never asked him. I don’t know what I was expecting or hoping or even thinking and I…
My thoughts break when he touches me.
When he cradles my face and tilts my neck up. When he looks down at me with shimmering eyes, with a face made of sharp features and even sharper regret.
He roves his eyes over my face for a second or two before taking his hands off the wall and stepping back. He takes my pallu with him and partially opens his fist, causing the fabric to drop down between us like a curtain of red sky and twinkling stars.
Then he raises it and drapes it over my shoulder like he’s really draping me with stars.
With celestial and heavenly bodies.
And covering me up from the world.
From his eyes too.
Before I can stop him, he turns around and leaves me in the closet, all covered up and dazed.
Act 2
The Bride-to-Be, The Love of Her Life, & The Fiancé
Chapter 1
The Wildfire Thorn
The Next Night…
I find him at The Horny Bard.
It’s one of those seedy bars with loud music, sticky tables, and everything bathed in red neon light. It’s never been my favorite place to hang out in Bardstown, but apparently is very popular among the soccer players.
Including him.
This is probably not the ideal place for me to do what I’ve come to do. I probably should wait until I can get him alone. But the longer I put off doing the right thing, the more time I have to do the wrong thing.
The more time I have to do something dangerous.
Because that’s what I am, aren’t I?
I’m dangerous.
I’ve always known that. I’m like my father. I’m a danger to my family.
But what I didn’t know was that I’m a danger to her as well. I’m a danger to her heart, like she said. I’m a danger to her happiness. To her happily ever after.
I’ve always considered her a threat.
A threat to my peace. My control. My promise.
A threat because she makes me feel things. She melts the ice around my heart.
And while that may be true, I’m the one who’s gone out of his way to ruin her. I’m the one who’s selfishly tried to use her and abuse her.
Not her.
So she’s not the problem. I am.
In fact, I realized something. I realized she’s the girl who makes my heart race. But not in the way my anger does. She doesn’t make the world disappear or she doesn’t make my vision blurry. I don’t have to look for a grounding object to get control of myself, no.
She makes the world bright. She brings the world into focus. When I’m with her, I don’t feel like I’ll burst out of my body. I feel like I can feel it for the first time. The heat on my skin. The air in my lungs. The blood in my veins.
I feel human.
I don’t know why I didn’t realize that before. Maybe because I was so focused on running away from her, so focused on keeping her at a distance, blaming her, being angry at her and the fact that she makes me feel when I don’t want to, that I never focused on the feeling itself.
I never focused on the fact that when I focus on her, I’m grounded.
She’s my grounding object.
And I have to protect her, don’t I?
She’s a treasure. A rare fucking treasure that I need to guard with my life.
So this is it.
This is how I do it.
He’s in his usual nook in the back of the bar. It’s hidden by a brick pillar and is made of plush leather couches. And as expected, they’re occupied by his—our—high school friends. Ark Reinhardt, an ex-soccer player who went pro for a couple of years but blew out his knee and now runs a security company, The Fortress, along with a very famous boxing gym in town; Homer Davidson, another ex-soccer player, but he never chose to go pro in favor of following in his father’s footsteps and taking over the family business; Byron Bradshaw, who did choose to go pro and currently plays for Seattle. He’s in town because we’re playing against his team the day after tomorrow.