Total pages in book: 97
Estimated words: 93723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93723 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 469(@200wpm)___ 375(@250wpm)___ 312(@300wpm)
“Your hair stroked?”
“You.”
Feeling needed in this kind of way is indescribable.
“I should take a walk. Want to go with me? Then we can warm up dinner. Shower. And eat cookies in bed while watching a show. I love my parents, but I was also so happy to see them go home this morning. Is that terrible?”
“No,” he murmurs like he’s half asleep already.
“We can skip the walk. You’re too tired.”
“Nope.” He sits up and scrubs his hands over his face. “Rehab. Rehab. Rehab. You need to walk. And I’m your guy.”
My guy …
Colten stands and offers me his hand to help me to my feet even though I can do it by myself, even if I’m still a little slow. His arms snake around my waist. “The shower part … was that an invite to shower with you? I mean, I need a shower. And you know … global warming and lakes drying up …”
Of course, I want him to shower with me, but I don’t give it away without making him squirm a bit.
“No funny business. I promise.”
I laugh. “Does anyone call it ‘funny business’ anymore?”
“Somewhere, I’m sure.” He kisses me.
I grab his shirt, keeping his lips to mine. When we kiss, I don’t think about the bodies of girls with shaved heads. When we kiss, I don’t think about the pain.
He pulls away and shakes his head while licking his lips. “Not fair. I just declared no funny business, and you kiss me like that?”
“Like what?”
“Like you want me to have a fucking hard-on all night.” He adjusts himself.
“Or that I missed you today.”
He grumbles. “That was more than a missing me kiss. Let’s go for that walk.”
“STOP!” I scream, jackknifing to sitting. “Ouch! Fuck …” My hand goes to my incision while Colten sits up and wraps me in his arms.
“I’ve got you,” he whispers. “It was just a bad dream. Just a bad dream …” He hugs me with a gentle rocking motion.
Tears make hot tracks down my face. I don’t know if I’m crying because of the dream or because my body did something it was not ready to do.
“Josie …” he kisses my face, claiming all of my tears. “Was it about that day?”
It was about a day, but not the day he’s implying. The same thing happened … only the girls were different girls. A different church. Different tree. It was so real. I tried to stop him, but I couldn’t because I couldn’t see him. I’ve never seen him. Just the girls.
“Yeah,” I say in a shaky voice. I want to tell him more. I need to tell him … tell someone before this gets worse.
“Did you take your pain meds?”
I shake my head.
“Why not?” His fingers ghost along my arms.
I shudder. “Because I don’t like how they make me feel.”
“Isn’t that the point? To not feel?”
“Hand me the pills,” I say just before swallowing back a little bile. I don’t have a weak stomach, but this is different. It’s not what I see in my dreams. It’s what I feel.
Colten hands me a pill and a glass of water from the nightstand. “It won’t last forever. You need to sleep. You’ve been restless for hours.”
I nod and hand the glass back to him.
With my heart still racing, he spoons me. I wish I could find his arms in my dreams … my nightmares.
“I’ve got you. Just rest.” He kisses my head.
I try to focus on the warmth of his body against mine. His skin pressed to mine like a shield. His arms an impenetrable armor. Still, I’m afraid to close my eyes.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
The problem with having an unforgivable asshole for a father was the embarrassment that came with people finding out about his indiscretions. Yes, plural.
“Is it true your dad grazed Holly Gill’s breast during study hall?” Anne Perez asked at a party a week before the end of our junior year.
For the record, his first affair was with a woman who cut his hair. Thankfully, and I used that word lightly, she was of legal age. The school had no real grounds to fire him. However, Holly was seventeen, days shy of her eighteenth birthday, and a senior when my dad was filling in for the study hall supervisor and allegedly grazed her breast with his nose.
Yep, his fucking nose.
She was walking through the cafeteria during study hall, running late to her next class, and my dad stopped her because she had both of her shoes untied. She also had a jammed finger from volleyball and said she couldn’t tie her shoes because her fingers were buddy taped.
Good ole Coach Mosley helped her out. Tied both shoes and allegedly slowly stood via his nose touching her breast. There were rumors that he did, in fact, inhale, but he denied it. Apparently, he went to stand, lost his balance, and fell into her. Nose to breast. And the alleged inhale was a gasp on his part.