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)
We share a look, light in our eyes. It’d be easy to be upset that reality has caught up. To wish away whatever person is here to help us.
But I think we’re both grateful for our fairytale and our reality—because we’re together in each one. We’re leaving this car as a couple when we entered it broken up.
“Jane?! Thatcher?!” Maximoff’s voice is unmistakable.
“Moffy!” Jane shouts. “We’re here!”
Not locals, then.
Surprise barely touches me. Because Maximoff Hale searching for a lost family member is in his nature the same way Jane hanging outside a window to tie a scarf to the car—in a fucking blizzard—is in hers.
Relief surges through me. Just knowing the help that’s arrived is capable and prepared for a rescue.
I try to force open the jammed door, budging a little bit more. Farrow and Maximoff dig us out in a matter of minutes.
Wind whips my hair, the sun hiding behind thicker, darker clouds. Hefty hiking packs lie next to the buried tires. I know they belong to Maximoff and Farrow. Both are dressed in full winter gear, their noses and cheeks reddened. Like they trekked here on foot through hellish weather. With a quick glance, I assess the car.
Fucking dammit. Deep in the snow, every door is obstructed, and the windshield is caked with ice. It’s not just that. The road is gone.
Just a valley of snow.
Even if we unburied the car, we wouldn’t be able to drive home.
While I attach my radio to my waistband and fit in my earpiece, Jane hops out behind me. Her ballet flats sink in the snow. “Sorry I didn’t come home, old chap—”
Maximoff rushes to his best friend and wraps her up in his arms. Picking her off the ground in a hug and saving her feet from the cold. “You’re okay?”
“I’m okay.” She clings tighter to him.
Farrow comes to my side, and we both watch the people we love embrace. They whisper to each other, and Maximoff keeps sweeping her from head to toe. Making sure she’s in one piece.
“I never want to see him like that again,” Farrow tells me, his voice low.
My chest tightens. “That bad?”
“Man, you have no idea.” His brown eyes almost glass, carrying the hours where he watched Maximoff fear the death of his best friend.
I think of the car crash last May. “I have some idea.” I watched Jane face the possibility that Maximoff was dead on-site.
Farrow remembers and nods. We need to catch up, and I skim him: a black beanie covering his hair, one earring dangling, and a black snow jacket with black snow pants on. I don’t care if he came in looking like Captain Jack Sparrow.
His comms should be accessible. “Where’s your earpiece?”
He rolls his eyes. “I don’t know, Mom, where’s yours?”
“In my ear,” I snap.
“That you just put in,” he says, irritated. Comms are a hot button issue between us because this is the one thing that really grates on me after a while. I need him.
The team needs him.
I know he’s pretty much always accessible, but still, it’d be easier if I didn’t have to fucking badger him to get there.
I narrow my gaze. “The team could be trying to reach you.”
“They can’t be.” Farrow lifts the hem of his jacket, showing me his radio on his waistband. “I turned off comms an hour ago.”
I glare. “You what?”
“I turned off comms,” Farrow repeats. “To preserve battery. I lost signal thirty minutes after we left the house and static was draining the thing.”
I run my hand across my jaw. Irritable tension building between us for a second.
Maximoff tells Jane, “Wait a second, I brought your boots.” He unzips his hiking pack, and she digs inside.
Farrow angles more towards the car. Head tilted, peering inside just slightly, then eyeing me with raised brows. “Have fun?” Humor is in his rising smile.
He literally encapsulates the saying: don’t sweat the small shit. Letting go of insignificant rifts with the snap of a finger.
I rub my mouth, feeling my lips lifting some at the memory of Jane. “It was a good night.” Not denying that. “I have to clean the car before we leave. Her brother will fucking kill me.”
Farrow frowns, leaning casually on the car. “Who? Charlie?”
I nod strictly. “He’s not a fan of people fucking in communal places.” I change frequencies on comms, hoping to find a working signal. “He basically eviscerated Maximoff for hooking up with you on the tour bus shower, and I’m trying to avoid a war with my girlfriend’s brothers. Not start one.”
Farrow nods. “You have nothing to worry about, Moretti.”
My brows knot. “What do you mean?”
“Charlie doesn’t give a flying shit about people fucking in communal places. If he did, he would’ve called out Beckett for screwing in the bus’s lounge. He just wanted to hurt and provoke Maximoff.”