Total pages in book: 150
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 148434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 742(@200wpm)___ 594(@250wpm)___ 495(@300wpm)
My head is telling me that I shouldn’t want these things. I shouldn’t want him around me all the time. I should be able to walk around a food market without my boyfriend.
Pressure assembles on my chest, and I follow my head. “We’re the only customers.” I stick to facts about safety. “The one employee is up at the front register, and she looks like she was alive during the Fall of Constantinople. She’s hardly a threat. This market might as well have been bought out and shut down for us.”
“But it wasn’t. And I usually don’t have to explain my job to you—”
“You don’t now,” I say stiffly. My chest is on fire. I waft my sweater for more air circulation. I drop my gaze for a fraction of a second.
Thatcher watches me with intense scrutiny, his eyes an extra furnace engulfing me whole. “Is this really about groceries? Or is something else goin’ on?” His South Philly accent comes through. Dog tags rest against his blue jacket.
He looks like Banks, but he couldn’t be more Thatcher Moretti. Stern and bold and commanding.
I lick my wind-chapped lips, air barely passing between them. Oxygen is dead-bolted inside my lungs. “I…” Words fail me. This is so new and different and I’m battling with too many warring emotions.
Head vs. Heart. I’m a Cobalt. My head should always win.
Concern ripens in his eyes. “If something is wrong, you can tell me.” He’s like iron and wine. Sturdy, unfailing, intoxicating, and mind-altering. Willing to banish my insecurities but jumbling my senses.
“I don’t know how,” I admit. My palms are so clammy—ink from the paper smudges on my fingers. I fold the list and slip it in my purse.
He hasn’t shifted an inch, his grip cemented on the handlebar of the cart. I think he might be afraid that one small movement could scare me off. I feel skittish, at least.
He sweeps me over one more time. “When I don’t know what to say—or if I think I might fuck it, if I do speak—I just try and take a couple breaths first.”
My mouth dries, and I attempt to inhale, but air crushes more pressure on my sternum. I’m going to have to just expel as much as I can, hopefully as bluntly as I can. He deserves the words I struggle to find.
“It is about the groceries,” I tell him. “At least, that’s a part of it.”
He nods me on.
“The other part,” I continue, throat swollen but words gush out harder and faster, “is the fact that the public learned I’m planning Maximoff’s wedding. All today I’ve been confronted with horrible opinions about my life.” I take out my cell and pop up screenshots of blog post comments.
Thatcher animates and raises a hand towards me. “You don’t have to read them to me, honey.”
“I want to,” I say. “They don’t hurt me.” I begin. “‘Jane Cobalt, the coattail rider. Never doing something for herself. If she’s not working for her cousin, it’d probably be her mother, father, or siblings.’” My hand gripping my phone starts to tremble. I squeeze tighter. “‘She’s such a disappointment. Imagine being the daughter of Rose Calloway Cobalt and choosing to follow Maximoff Hale around like a lost puppy.’” I blink back a sliver of pain. “‘Jane Cobalt could have been our queen. Instead we got a weak imposter who can’t do anything on her own.’”
Thatcher takes a stringent, urgent step around the cart.
My pulse spikes and I shuffle back.
He holds up his hands like he comes in peace. “Jane.” He says my name with concern and severity. “You can stop reading that horseshit.”
They don’t hurt me, I want to repeat. But they have to some degree. I always prided myself on rising above hatred and not letting the world’s ridicule affect me. I feel small when I let them in and they tear a chunk out of me.
“I used to think it was horseshit too,” I say into a nod. “I did. I read the same garbage when I worked at H.M.C. Philanthropies, and I truly believed that they were wrong. Because at the end of the day, my job doesn’t define me.” I point at my chest. “I’m more independent, self-sufficient than anyone on the other side of a screen even knows. Sure, I can work for Moffy. I can work for my mom or dad or siblings. But I don’t need someone in my life. I don’t want for anything or anyone. The love I carry for myself is enough. It’s always been enough.” Tears my burn eyes. “Until I met you.”
I expect him to look like I took a sword and shoved it through his ribcage, but he stands before me like a soldier wearing Kevlar, used to taking bullets.
He doesn’t even flinch.
“Keep going,” he demands.