Total pages in book: 92
Estimated words: 89265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89265 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 446(@200wpm)___ 357(@250wpm)___ 298(@300wpm)
“Did you like it?”
I didn’t answer right away. “That’s a complicated question. But I’ll say yes.”
“Were you overseas?”
“Yeah.”
“Where?”
“Iraq, then Afghanistan.”
“What was it like there?”
I shook my head. Crossed my arms again. “You don’t really want to know that.”
“Why not?”
“Because no one really wants to know that.” My tone was a little harsher than I’d intended it to be, but she was pressing on a bad bruise. How many times had Brie told me not to talk about the war when we were out with friends because it was depressing and no one wanted to hear about depressing things on a Saturday night?
“I’m sorry,” Stella said, sitting back and putting her hands in her lap. Her eyes dropped too. “I don’t mean to pry. Sometimes I can’t help it.”
“I don’t need a therapist, Stella,” I snapped, hating myself for being a dick but needing to put my cards on the table. “I don’t have PTSD, I’m not depressed, and I sleep just fine at night. Not all of us came back damaged.”
Her cheeks went from pink to plum. “I never said—”
“Look, I don’t know what kind of shit is going around about me in this town, but they can all go to hell. I moved up here to get away from the talk.”
“I haven’t heard anything,” she protested. “Honestly, I was only trying to get to know you.”
“Well, maybe it’s better if you don’t.”
We sat there in silence for a moment. I was positive she was going to get up and leave any second—I would have.
“Boy,” she said. “You weren’t kidding about conversation.”
I grimaced. “Can’t say I didn’t warn you.”
“I’m sitting here trying to figure out a way to apply Grams’s advice, but somehow saying how fun you are to talk to doesn’t seem quite right.”
Fucking hell, I was a jerk. But it was better she knew that up front, wasn’t it?
She stood up. “So I think I’ll just go. Keep the pie, you can return the pan to Grams whenever.”
When I didn’t say anything more, she walked out of the kitchen, leaving me there at the table, arms crossed and scowling.
I should have been relieved she was gone. So what if I’d enjoyed her company for a few minutes? I was bound to fuck it up sooner or later. And I didn’t need a friend, didn’t like people asking me questions, didn’t want her to know me. This was for the best.
I lasted about three seconds.
“Stella, wait.” Jumping out of my chair so fast it tipped over backward, I rushed through the house and caught her at the front door, grabbing her arm. “Listen, I’m sorry.”
She looked at my hand on her arm, then met my eyes. Her expression told me she wasn’t sure I was one of the good guys anymore.
I loosened my grip on her but didn’t let go. “Really. I’m sorry. I’ve never been good at small talk.”
She arched one brow. “You were fine at the small talk, actually.”
I frowned. Tried again. “Look, the last few years of my life have been difficult. They’ve left me with some … rough edges.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t relate easily to people.”
“Fine.”
“And I’m not interested in being social.”
“So I gathered.” She tilted her head toward the door. “That’s why I’m trying to leave.”
“But that doesn’t give me the right to be an asshole to you.” I squeezed her arm, then let it go. “So for that, I apologize.”
She glanced down at her arm where my hand had been, then looked up at me again. Her eyes were so blue, so clear. So honest. Part of me ached to be honest with her—not like I’d been at the table, not in a defensive way, but in a real way. A deeper way.
Who are you kidding? If she knew the truth about you, she’d still be running for the door.
“You know,” she said, drawing herself up, as if gathering her strength, “I let Grams talk me into coming over here tonight. Let her curl my hair and dress me up and convince me I’d been wrong about you.”
“Wrong about me?”
“Yes. I told her that you’d made it very clear you weren’t interested in me. But I came over here anyway, because the truth is, I’ve hardly been able to think about anything but you since we met. It doesn’t make sense at all, and it’s totally unlike me, but there it is.”
There were so many things I wanted to say. Tell her she’d been on my mind all day, tell her how beautiful she was, tell her how, in another life, I’d be kissing her right now, not clenching my fists because I was scared if she stayed here any longer, I wouldn’t be able to keep my hands off her.
But touching her would’ve been wrong. And at this point in my life, when I had a chance to choose between right and wrong, I needed to choose right. There had been too many times in the past where the choice hadn’t been mine. I needed to atone for that.