Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 85682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85682 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 428(@200wpm)___ 343(@250wpm)___ 286(@300wpm)
“I got to deliver a package to a gorgeous, mysterious guy. He answered the door shirtless, with wet hair, and I swear it was the sexiest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”
She laughed. “You’re obsessed.”
“I can’t help it. We hardly ever get anyone new in Ryland, and when we do, they don’t look like him. I don’t know what in the hell he’s doing here, but I’m sure glad he came. I just wish I knew if he’s queer or not. I’m sure it’s wishful thinkin’.” What were the odds of a guy like Emerson liking men and landing in Ryland? I probably had more of a chance to win the lottery, and if that was the case, I wished it would hurry up and happen. A whole lot of my problems would be solved with more money. Or they’d be easier to deal with.
“Who knows, maybe he is. It’ll be like all those movies where the small-town girl and the big-city guy fall in love, only in your story, it’ll be two men.”
“I don’t wanna fall in love with him. I wanna fuck him. Who the hell has time for love?”
“Gross,” she replied teasingly, and not because the thought of having sex with men wasn’t her thing. Molly didn’t like sex at all. She didn’t really get attracted to people that way. And she didn’t crave intimacy or a relationship either.
We’d been twenty-one and drunk when we’d spilled our secrets to each other. At the time Molly’d had a boyfriend and I’d had a girlfriend because that was what we’d been raised to feel like we had to do. I knew I was gay, but had never said the words out loud, had only ever indulged in the quiet of my bedroom when my mom was gone or too fucked up to know what was going on, and I’d lose myself in gay porn. But Molly hadn’t understood why she felt different. She’d thought something was wrong with her, admitted that every time she had sex with Brent, she hated every second of it. She said it made her skin crawl, that she didn’t want to be with him, didn’t want to get physical with him or anyone else.
That was when I’d told her I was gay, and we’d researched and figured she was likely somewhere on the asexual spectrum. Maybe asexual and also aromantic.
I’d broken up with Amber, and she’d broken up with Brent. And for the past four years, we’d let everyone in Ryland believe we were together. It gave us both the cover we needed.
“Do you think that’s what drew us to each other?” I asked. “Like maybe we both sensed we weren’t like other people we knew?” Molly had been my best friend since I was ten years old, back when it wasn’t cool to have a girl for a best friend. Kids asked me why I spent so much time with her, and adults teased us that one day we’d get married, which had felt weird as fuck to me.
“Maybe,” she replied. “I’ve read about stuff like that, how certain people are drawn to each other because they know they share something even before they know what that is.”
I nodded, wondering if that was us. We had other things in common, of course. Molly loved working outside and was fixing up her whole backyard, and I loved that kind of work too and helped when I could. We loved old Brad Pitt movies, thought the ocean was pretty but were scared to swim in it, and we were both loners. We hadn’t known about those similarities when we became friends, but still, we’d felt close to each other from the very beginning.
I leaned forward, grabbed my plate off the coffee table, and took a bite of my burger.
What was Emerson’s story? I couldn’t say what it was about him that interested me so much, other than the fact that he was gorgeous. Well, that, and he looked sad and lonely. He had this quietness in him that called out to me, made me want to discover his secrets and find all the ways I could make him laugh. I’d always been told I was good at that, at making people happy. I didn’t believe that was the case because I hadn’t figured out exactly how to make myself or my mom happy, but it was a nice thought.
It was even nicer thinking about doing it for Emerson. He was a challenge, and I couldn’t lie, I’d always liked those.
Plus, that loneliness in him matched the one buried deep in my chest, to that place I liked to pretend didn’t exist. Like if I camouflaged it well enough, it would go away completely.
Molly said, “Did you hear that for the next few weeks Iris’s is gonna need someone to deliver takeout on Friday and Saturday nights? Jaxon wrecked his car, and it’s gonna take a while to get it fixed.” She was a waitress there.