Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 72071 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72071 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 360(@200wpm)___ 288(@250wpm)___ 240(@300wpm)
I did like it. There was no probably about it.
My heart constricted that much more.
“Come on, let’s go inside. I’ll show you around, give you the documents you need, then take you into town where I’ll show you where Linnie will go to school under her new assumed name. Also, where you’ll be working,” he said.
I blinked, then swallowed hard as I asked, “I’ll be working?”
Hoax grinned. “Unsurprisingly, Liner got you this job, too.”
***
Liner
“I wasn’t sure that I wanted to give you this,” Hoax said to me the next morning. “I contemplated it, then I decided that I was an asshole for even thinking that this was my decision to make. So, here it is.”
I took the letter in his hand, knowing without seeing proof that it was from Theo.
“Thanks,” I said, not bothering to call him on the fact that he almost hadn’t handed me the letter at all.
“You’re welcome,” he paused with his hand on the doorknob. “For what it’s worth…I was in the wrong. Even Rome told me.” He inhaled deeply, then let the breath out through clenched teeth. “I just didn’t want to see you get hurt like Rome. You’ve already been through enough.”
Hoax didn’t know me all that well.
Nobody really did.
But they all acted like they were my mother instead of my friends half the time.
I gestured for him to leave, which he did moments later, leaving me in my house alone for the first time in a while.
Monster walked over to the couch where Linnie had left her blanket, dropped his head directly on top of it, and made the saddest doggy whine I’d ever heard.
“I know, boy,” I said as I took the seat beside him and patted his head. “I know.”
Then I read the letter and was fairly sure that I’d never be the same.
Liner,
It’s my hope that you’re reading this, and its not in a trashcan hundreds of miles away from where you are.
I just wanted you to know that, from the moment you gave me that cupcake, I was in love with you.
Nobody ever did anything nice for me just because…but you did. You showed me kindness when all I ever felt was pain. You showed me what it was like to live, and for that, I’ll forever be grateful. I’ll forever remember that, for just a few days, I lived. I didn’t exist.
I’ll never have another man. I’ll never feel what you showed me I could feel again.
But, I have something better than that. A great memory that won’t ever allow me to forget you.
With all my love,
Theodora
When I was through reading the letter, I calmly walked to the front door, slipped into my boots, and then went to work.
There, at least I was needed.
There, at least I wouldn’t have an infinite amount of time to think about how badly I’d screwed up.
There, maybe I’d forget.
I was wrong, though.
The office was still swamped. Reports of power outages still came through. Trucks were dispatched. I was busy. Dad was gone.
But I still didn’t stop thinking about her.
And I had a feeling it would be something that continued to be there—a hollow feeling somewhere in the vicinity of my heart—for the rest of my life.
Chapter 17
You gotta let me nap. I’m gonna get cranky.
-Theo’s secret thoughts
Theo
1 month later
I was sad.
Which was stupid, because I now had everything I wanted.
I had a new life.
I had a new job.
I had my baby under my roof.
There was seriously nothing else in the world that I wanted more than what I had…at least that was before I’d met Liner.
Now I wanted more. I wanted him.
I wanted him in my life. I wanted him in my bed. I wanted him under my skin.
But I’d never have him.
“Momma, why are you looking so sad?” Linnie asked softly, bringing my attention from the eggs I was scrambling for her to her bright blue eyes that looked so much like mine.
“I miss Liner,” I admitted, not one to tell a lie when the truth worked just as well. “I’m sad that he’s not here with us.”
She tilted her head and stared at me with eyes that were too old to belong to a five-year-old.
“Then tell him to come back,” she ordered.
I smiled. “It’s not that simple, sweet pea. He can’t come…he has to work.”
She pursed her lips. “He doesn’t always have to work.”
I thought about her comment, then I realized that she was right. He didn’t always have to work.
Placing the whisk and the bowl of half-beaten eggs aside, I walked to the little breakfast nook that was in the corner of the kitchen, then leaned my hip against the wall on the opposite side of where Linnie was coloring her Valentine’s page she’d asked me to print off the printer this morning.
“Do you remember why I told you that you had to go by your middle name now?” I asked.