Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 122514 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122514 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 613(@200wpm)___ 490(@250wpm)___ 408(@300wpm)
“He’s cool. He’s funny.”
“Have you two, you know…”
“No, Hadley. There’s been nothing like that. Just friends.”
“But still.” She sighed, moving to sit more forward in her seat, her profile to me. “Can you imagine being friends with someone that famous? I know we get celebrities here sometimes, but we’re staff to them.”
“Yeah.” I understood.
“Some are so nice and down-to-earth, but we’re not friends when they leave.”
“It’s their staff that aren’t so nice sometimes,” Owen added.
Owen and Hadley shared a laugh, and I knew what they meant. Reese and me, though, this wasn’t just a camp friendship. It didn’t feel like it.
But maybe it would be. Maybe when he left, and they entered their regular season, that’d be the end of us. I guess if that happened, then that’s what happened.
Was I really in a place to demand otherwise? I mean, come on. I was a mess, a certifiable, fucked-in-the-head, slightly-crazy-and-I’m-not-joking-about-it sort of mess. Reese had become some form of weird name-calling glue that held me together.
Was this the beginning of healing?
Maybe?
God, I hoped so.
Either way, when we pulled in to Grant and Sophia’s house, I was more than ready for some margaritas.
Three hours later, the screen door opened behind me. A beer and a package of smokes landed on the table, and Grant sat beside me.
I grunted as he yawned, then lit one up. “I forgot you smoked.”
My stomach knotted. I knew why he’d come out, and the somersaults were going.
He breathed in, his arm resting on his knee. “Yeah. Just when I’m drinking.” I felt his gaze. “If we were teens, I’d offer you one. You stopped, right?”
“I only had a few that one summer with you. And they were cigars.”
I’d gone a whole summer thinking I was badass, sucking in, holding, then exhaling. I never actually inhaled the cigars, and I’d had no clue I was doing it wrong until a friend realized what I was doing. She’d laughed so hard that I gave up cigars after that.
My voice was hoarse now, from the yelling, cheering, laughing, drinking—just from all the hoopla I’d learned defined a party at Grant and Sophia’s house.
“I think I’m in love with your fiancée and her family,” I added.
He grinned, taking another drag, then lifting his beer. “I know. Why do you think I’m marrying her?”
I grinned, but I didn’t look back to meet his gaze. We were side by side, and it felt right, like old times, though I was still certain he’d come out for a serious talk. And fuck me, but I was going to beat him to the punch.
“I don’t want an apology.”
There. Take that.
“Good.” He put his beer down, coughing once. “’Cause you ain’t getting one.”
I gave him the side-eye now. “Excuse me?”
He grinned, then took another drag from his cigarette. “You heard me. This is what you reap. You don’t let your friends in, and this is what you get. They can’t know if you don’t tell them shit.”
I grunted. “Touché.” And a second grunt. “Hadley and Owen were fawning over him in the car coming over here.”
“As they will.” A sip of beer. “They don’t see it the way I see it.”
I groaned. “I hate when you bait me.”
He laughed softly. “Fine. I’ll take the bait myself. How do I see it? Well…” He was quiet a moment. “Are you using him? How invested are you?”
“You’re worried he’ll hurt me?”
“I have reason to be worried.”
Damian.
Dementia.
Early-onset dementia that was supposed to be so rare it never happened. But it did. It had happened to him.
I took Grant’s cigarette. “I don’t know what to tell you—”
He plucked it back out of my hands. I didn’t even get the chance to bring it to my mouth.
He scowled. “What the fuck? I know you, Charlie. I know you. You’re going to take a drag, then start coughing so much you’re almost puking, and you’ll run inside to the bathroom. Either way, you get out of this conversation, and I know that’s the real goal for you.” He pointed his cigarette at me before taking it to his mouth. “No smokes for you, and stop bullshitting me. Just tell me what I want to know, and we can be done with it.” His eyes flicked upward. “And you know I’m sorry for being a dumbass earlier. I get you not wanting to talk about you-know-who, but just reassure this old bastard who used to be your best friend that you are talking to someone about him?”
I was quiet.
He sighed. “Charlie.”
“I’ve mentioned the situation to Reese.”
“Forster?” he scoffed.
“Yes. Him.”
He was quiet again. “Shit. I’m trying not to be best-friend jealous here. Him? Really?”
I shrugged, my stomach settling back down. “To be honest, I didn’t say much. Just that I’m going through something stupidly tragic.”
Another beat. “It’s not stupid. It’s just tragic, plain and simple.”