Total pages in book: 91
Estimated words: 92368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92368 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 369(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Something flutters out of the boot, falling to the carpet. Ticket stubs. Putting the trophy down, I bend down and pick them up. It takes me a few moments to realize what they are. And, when I do, my eyes flash to Zeus’s, which are carefully watching me.
“Are these…” My mouth feels like cotton is stuffed in it. I swallow roughly and try again. “Are these the ticket stubs from the Ferris wheel ride? The first one we went on together?”
He nods, not saying a word.
“I didn’t know you’d kept these…all these years. Why?”
He walks over to me. “Because they signify the moment I fell in love.” His hand lifts to my face, and he tucks my hair behind my ear. “That smart mouth and those long legs…I never stood a chance.” He smiles gently. “I kept those tickets to always remind me of what I had in case I ever forgot.”
“You did forget,” I whisper, tears filling my eyes.
He shakes his head. “I never forgot, Dove. I just let other things get in the way. I won’t make that mistake again. Now, tell me you love me. And that you forgive me. And that we’re gonna make this work.”
I want to say yes. Knowing that he kept those ticket stubs for all these years has loosened something inside me. But, still, the fear of giving myself over to him and getting hurt again holds me back.
“I just…I ca—”
“Don’t say you can’t.” He presses his fingertips to my lips, silencing me. “Just…let me show you something first. Then…decide.”
My eyes lower. “I don’t know, Zeus.”
“Please, Dove.”
I look back into his pleading eyes. Eyes I’ve loved since I was fifteen. And I whisper, “Okay.”
We’re in Zeus’s car, driving to whatever it is that he wants me to see.
Lady Gaga’s “The Edge of Glory” is playing on the radio, and I’m wondering if he remembers when he says quietly, “Our prom song.”
I glance at him. His eyes meet mine in the dark.
“Yeah,” I say softly.
Cliché as it is, it was after my senior prom that we had sex for the first time.
We’d been together for two years. We’d done pretty much everything but the act itself. I was ready. It was him that always held back.
He wanted to wait until I was eighteen. I was a few months shy of my eighteenth birthday. I didn’t want to wait. Most of my high school friends had lost their virginity at sixteen. I was dating the hottest guy in Coney Island…the world…and I was still a virgin.
Anyway, he took me to prom, and it was everything I could have hoped it would be. Then, after, Zeus surprised me with a room in a really nice hotel. He was making half-decent money from his fights by that point. It wasn’t long after that when he went to the Olympics and came back with gold, and his career took off.
The beginning of our end.
So, yeah, I had given him my body that night. He’d already had my heart.
I never did quite get it back the same.
I break eye contact and look out the passenger window of his car. He’s driving down a private road. A lake is on the right.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
He turns into a driveway, pulling to a stop outside a beautiful, big, old colonial-style house with a wraparound porch.
“We’re here,” he says, turning off the engine. He gets out of the car.
Confused, I follow him.
“Here, where?” I ask, shutting the car door.
He turns to face me. “Home.”
“This is yours?”
“Ours.”
“I’m sorry, what?” I step forward, closer, sure I must’ve heard him wrong.
“It’s ours. Yours, mine, and Gigi’s. I bought it.”
Then, he turns and walks up the porch steps. He unlocks the door.
My body kicks into action, and I follow him into the house. I step into a wide hallway. Staircase in front. Doors off to the sides.
I shut the door behind me and lean against it. “What do you mean, it’s mine, yours, and Gigi’s?”
“I bought it for us. I don’t really know how else to phrase it.”
I blankly stare at him. “You bought us a house.”
“You need to know I’m not going anywhere.” He spreads his arms out. “I’m not going anywhere, Dove. I bought this house because I want to be where you and Gigi are. And I’m hoping that, one day, you both will come to live here with me.”
I’m still staring at him. I think I’ve gone into shock. My heart is beating wildly. “I can’t believe you did this.”
“Believe it.”
“It’s too much.”
“No.” He steps close to me, wrapping his hands around my biceps. “It’s what needed to be done. This is me showing you that I’m not leaving. I tried telling you, and it didn’t work. So, all I’ve got left are actions. I’m here to stay. This house is ours. I want us to live here as a family. I want to put my daughter to bed every night and then climb into bed beside you.”