Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
She laughed bleakly. “No.”
Naz tipped his head to the side. “What happened?”
She sniffled, and he didn’t miss the way her gaze filled with water before she tried to blink it away. Not that it worked. She shook her head when Naz reached up to stroke her cheek with his fingertips, and then brushed a few strands of her hair behind her ear. It wasn’t like Roz to get emotional, really. She had her shit under control—it was one of the things he loved the most about her, but when she did let the emotion through ... he knew something was up.
Always.
“The girl Kyle wanted me to come meet to possibly mentor?” she asked.
Naz arched a brow. “Yeah, what about her?”
“She’s ... not well,” Roz said, and then she frowned. “And not like physically sick, but ... in her mind, Naz. She’s got something going on that she’s not telling people. I knew it when I met her yesterday, and then today ... it just confirmed what I thought.”
“I don’t understand—”
“She tried to hang herself this morning. We found her in her dorm.”
Naz blinked, and his hands tightened on her legs. “I’m sorry.”
Roz shrugged. “I think someone needs to tell her that, you know?”
Yeah, he did.
Naz let out a heavy sigh. “Fuck. I thought this was about you, or maybe ...”
She eyed him from the side. “Or maybe what?”
“Nothing.”
“Naz.”
Just the tone of her voice had him chuckling. This woman knew all of his secrets. She could tell when he was trying to hide something, or just avoid it altogether. There was no way for him to ever pull something over on her. His mother liked to say that was the universe’s way of kicking Naz in the ass for all the shit he pulled over the years.
And hell, maybe it was.
He loved Roz for it, though.
Instead of telling Roz his suspicions about what he thought her news happened to be, he just looked at her and asked, “Listen, do you have anything you want to tell me right now?”
Roz pressed her lips together. “Maybe, yeah.”
“Okay, well maybe that’s why I came all the way here. I didn’t want to wait.”
She laughed, but shook her head. “I shouldn’t be happy right now. This is not the time to be—”
“You’re human, which means you can feel multiple things at the same time. You can feel pain for someone else at the same time you feel joy for yourself for an entirely different reason. That’s normal, babe.”
She nodded again. “Okay.”
“So, any news?”
“Well ...”
“Hmm?”
Roz winked. “Seems I’m pregnant.”
Naz grinned. There it was.
He’d been right, and while he had pushed it to the back of his mind to let her tell him so he could feel all that happiness and joy because she told him ... now, he was just over the fucking moon.
“Yeah?” he asked.
Roz laughed. “Like eight weeks, I’d say.”
“Barbados, then,” he murmured.
“Guess so.”
His heart was hurting again, but it wasn’t for the same reason from earlier. Now, it was because something amazing was happening in his life. This woman was about to give him something incredible.
“I love you,” he told her.
“I know—I love you, too.”
Naz finally got to do what he’d been wanting to do for two months, then. He pulled Roz into a tight hug, and hid her away from the rest of the world. That’s how he liked her best, after all. Tucked into his arms, and safe.
She tipped her head back, and that smile of hers clouded his vision. He dropped a kiss to her grinning lips, and then another and another. Until she was smiling against his kiss.
“So, what happens now?” he asked.
“About what?”
“The girl. Kyle. You.”
“I don’t know, Naz.”
Yeah, him either.
The Aftermath (of England): Part 1
Roz POV
Naz was funny in the way he would much rather rent an Airbnb, even if he was only staying in a place for a couple of days, than a hotel room. Roz never understood why, but that’s how it worked for him. She thought it was probably because he didn’t feel at home in a hotel room, or maybe because over the years, he’d stayed in a lot of hotels when he traveled. But who was to say?
Nonetheless, when he figured out she wasn’t going to be leaving England for at least another week, the first thing he did was call back home, and get things settled there. The second thing he did was get on the laptop, and rent them an Airbnb because as he said, he wasn’t sleeping in a fucking hotel.
Roz let him do what he wanted. It was easier, and she really didn’t care as long as she had a bed to sleep in. Even better because he was there to sleep in it with her. But Roz also knew Naz wouldn’t be able to stay in England more than a week—people were waiting on him back in New York. Responsibilities and duties were waiting on him to get back to what he did best. She didn’t fault him for that.