Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 62783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 314(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 62783 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 314(@200wpm)___ 251(@250wpm)___ 209(@300wpm)
“You’re one to talk,” I fired back. “Your longest relationships don’t last past the night.” I took another drink. “And I didn’t mope.”
“You did,” he said matter-of-factly. “And I don’t need a relationship period.”
“Yeah, asshole Ridge doesn’t need anyone at all,” I said. “Present company excluded.”
Ridge flipped me off, and I laughed.
“I’ve got no issue with how I live,” he said, leaning closer over the island. “But ten bucks says you’ve got issue with not taking her up on that olive branch she tried to hand you.”
I glared at him, but he wasn’t wrong. I was already regretting shutting her down as quickly as I did. It was a knee-jerk reaction though—my heart’s way of trying to protect itself. Because she’d wrecked it ten years ago and I’d never fully recovered.
Still, she may have only meant the offer as a friendly catch-up, not a date. For all I knew, she was married again. I’d seen the announcement sections enough to know she’d been married a few times. And it never hurt any less, even though it shouldn’t.
Ten years man, get the fuck over it.
“Another ten says you don’t go two days without tracking her down,” Ridge said, smirking at me.
“You’re on,” I said, clinking his bottle with mine. “I have no desire to see her. I’ve been down that road before and it’s a painful one.”
Ridge looked at me skeptically but I just shrugged.
I needed it to be true.
I needed to stay away from her.
Because there was no world in which Anne VanDoren and me got our happily ever after.
CHAPTER 3
Anne
I softly closed the door behind me, practically tiptoeing out of my mother’s room.
“How did that go?” Persephone asked me once I made it down the hall and to the den. I took a seat next to her on the leather sofa, nodding.
“Really well,” I said, relief uncoiling some of the tension in my muscles. Mom was recovering in her master bedroom with every luxury at her fingertips. Hell, she even complained about being restless with all the down time and meds schedule, but she would never dare deviate from the doctor’s instructions.
“That’s wonderful,” my sister said, reaching across the space between us to squeeze my hand.
It was an effort to not pull away from her, the reaction was so ingrained in me.
I took a deep breath and simply allowed myself to feel.
To feel comfort in her support, her love. To feel happy that Mom beamed at my three weeks’ sober success. It was all so different for me—actually feeling the emotions that came with being sober, not to mention actually being on the receiving end of my mother’s praise for once.
I loved making her proud, making my sister proud. I really did. I liked the accomplished feeling, even if I was only doing the bare minimum right now compared to what Persephone did in a regular day in her life—
Stop comparing.
Readjust.
I used the tools Dr. Casson had given me to realign my thought process when it came to my sister.
Persephone lives her life. I live mine. She does amazing things. I do amazing things.
The hard part about the process was finding worth in the events of my current life.
You didn’t take a drink last night when you easily could’ve.
That much was true. The bottle had been right there acting like an escape route straight to numbville.
You saved that grumpy cat’s life.
I laughed out loud at the thought, thinking that was a stretch. I’m sure the feral beast would’ve gotten the jar off somehow.
“What’s so funny?” Persephone asked gently.
“Last night,” I said, shaking my head. “It was eventful.”
“Was Lyla’s Place packed?”
“It’s almost always packed,” I answered. “Her food is really that good. But no, it was what happened after work.”
After work.
I don’t think I’ve ever uttered those words before in my life, and they filled me with the oddest little sensation—pride?
Maybe. I wasn’t entirely sure what it felt like to be really proud of something.
“What happened?”
I relayed the events of last night to my sister, her NHL Carolina Reaper husband coming in midway through the story.
Cannon immediately took a seat on the armrest of the couch, close enough to slide his hand lovingly down Persephone’s back. The move was so effortless it almost looked like he wasn’t even aware he was doing it. Those two were the real deal, something I’d grossly mistaken when I’d met Cannon weeks ago.
“And the officer just let you go?” Cannon asked, his tone in the usual deep tenor that bordered on this side of gruff. After getting to know him, I understood it wasn’t personal, it was just his voice. He was like the scary big brother I never had.
“He did,” I said, having left out the part about the officer being my ex-boyfriend. It was instinct to keep anything that mattered to me to myself, because the things I valued often had a way of getting tainted by my family, whether by their disapproval or their indifference.