Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 74298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 74298 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 371(@200wpm)___ 297(@250wpm)___ 248(@300wpm)
We ordered some local beers and settled in. I liked the tavern immediately, too. It was my first time coming here, but already I felt at home. The whole place was wood and brick, with a pride flag hanging behind the bar next to all of the drinks. There were plenty of leather booths and spots to dance or play pool, and at the center of it all I immediately recognized the Big Rock Cock statue all the guys had been talking about in the group text.
As we sipped our beers, a few other bartenders and the cook, Perry, came out to chat.
“I can see why you like it here,” I told Jack as the evening started to get busier.
“I always thought it might be too rowdy or something,” Jack said, his eyes scanning the bar as he spoke. He was in one of his white T-shirts as usual, and I was amazed how rugged my best friend managed to look even as he was just sipping a beer at a bar. He’d been growing out his facial hair into a nice, neat scruff lately, and it looked so damn good on him. “But really, this place is just the right speed for me. I can just chill here at the bar if I want to, or I can get drunk and dance.”
“Wait a minute. Dance? I’ve never seen you dance.”
He cut me a glance, a mischievous smile starting to peek out.
“Did you hop on that dance floor while I was gone?”
“On one night, I definitely did,” he admitted.
“Oh my God, I missed out on so much,” I said, shaking my head.
I’d meant it as a cheeky comment, but after I said it, I realized how true the feeling was.
Visiting my family over the last month had been amazing, but I’d missed Blue like hell. And the decision to permanently move back out to Jade River, Colorado had been one of the harder ones I’d had to make, but after reuniting with my family, I knew it was the right one.
I’d been here in Kansas for too long. When I was eighteen, I had all but run away from Colorado, and I’d been on shaky terms with my family since then. We had talked on the phone, but I hadn’t visited nearly enough in the last twelve years.
But when I visited this summer, I’d realized that the hostility from my family had just been in my head. My brothers, my sister, and my mom didn’t see me as the “black sheep” of the family like I thought of myself—instead, they had just missed me, and hoped that while I was away, I could find peace, find success, find myself.
And finally, after more than a decade, I truly had.
But looking at Blue’s eyes right now, as he tried and failed to hide the sadness about my leaving town, was something close to heartbreak.
“Blue,” I said, reaching out and brushing a piece of his hair back from his forehead. “I have an idea.”
He nodded at me, looking up at me from under his perfect lashes. “And what’s that?”
“Move with me to Colorado,” I said. “Simple. Easy. Right?”
I was joking, of course. At least I thought I was.
He puffed out a little laugh, looking back down at the bar. “What happens when you take a Kansas boy out of Kansas?”
“No clue,” I said. “I imagine you go through the whole Wizard of Oz movie, over and over again. Maybe my brothers can play the tin man and the lion, my sister can be Dorothy, and my dad can be the Wizard.”
“Does that leave your mom to be the wicked witch?” he asked.
“Oh, shit,” I said. “I guess it does.”
“And I think your mom would hate that.”
“She did dress up as a wicked witch for Halloween once when I was a kid,” I said with a shrug. “Mom is up for anything. Maybe she’d do it.”
He laughed, reaching for his beer again. “Sounds good to me.”
He’d treated it as a joke, but the idea of Jack moving to Colorado with me was now let loose in my brain, and it was running around like a damn crazed sheep in a field. For some reason, the moment I’d said it I’d lit up like a Christmas tree inside, with a kind of desire I hadn’t felt in a long time.
I really fucking wanted him to move there with me, I realized. Not that he ever would, especially with his deep attachment to his late father here in Kansas. He was devoted to the idea of keeping and restoring his father’s home—his own childhood home—even though he hadn’t had the capacity to lift a finger to it over the past year.
But Jack Damien had believed in me when nobody else in the world had. He’d taken a chance on me when I had no work experience, and he’d helped me grow into the hard worker I was today. He’d seen me through countless drunken nights, camping trips, and construction jobs that were both terrible and great. Jack had always been the perfect, rugged man that I had grown up wishing I could be. The kind of guy that was in charge. That could be relied on to take care of anything.