Total pages in book: 24
Estimated words: 22250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 111(@200wpm)___ 89(@250wpm)___ 74(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 22250 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 111(@200wpm)___ 89(@250wpm)___ 74(@300wpm)
I nuzzle her neck, about to ask her when I realize she’s fast asleep. I suppose it doesn’t matter. I’ll get her name tomorrow. I’ll tell her mine then too so she can scream it for all the other guests to hear.
5
JOURNEY
I haven’t slept this soundly in ages and when I wake up to the light snoring of the man next to me, I smile.
Last night, I’d planned to drive straight through to Sweetheart, North Carolina. Gray, a friend of mine, has offered me a job there at his wedding venue. Since I just lost my home, it seems like the best of bad options. Still, there was something about the honky-tonk bar on the side of the interstate. Something that made me want to stop in and stay. Now I’m glad I did.
Except that it’s over. This was just for a night, and I don’t want to listen as this handsome stranger lets me down easy in a few minutes. That’s why I rush through a quick shower and gather my things. Better to be gone so this can stay a nice memory that I can pull out on the nights when I’m lonely.
Something about leaving him doesn’t feel right. It makes my heart hurt and my stomach tie up in knots.
“He won’t want you,” I whisper to myself as I glance around the room one final time. I know the words are true. My life is pretty weird right now. I’m just trying to find my way since my mom died.
As I reach for the door, I spot the golden testicles on the nightstand. They make me smile and before I can second guess myself, I creep back over there and grab them. I shove them into my bag and leave, refusing to let myself have a backward glance. My night with the sexy stranger is officially over.
Sitting in the café about an hour outside of Asheville, I check my phone and read the text message again. It’s been unanswered for a week. A message from the brother I only recently discovered. Want to meet up sometime?
It’s still strange to me to know I have an older brother. He lives here in North Carolina, in a place called Courage County. He’s invited me to meet up.
But I’m a coward. That’s why I haven’t responded. In twenty years of living together, you’d think mom would have mentioned she had a son. Why did she never tell me about my brother and father? Are they horrible men? Is that why she never told me? Was there something in her past she was ashamed of?
There are so many questions I want answers to. If my life were one of those women’s movies that she liked so much, I would discover a journal she’d written. In it, she would confess all of her secrets and help me make sense of the life she left behind. Since that’s not going to happen, I need to be brave and meet him.
With shaking fingers, I send him a text. I have time today.
His response takes less than a minute. Text me the place and time.
I give him the address and order another espresso. This time I make it a double and hope that I’m not making a huge mistake by meeting him. Once I’ve opened Pandora’s box, I won’t be able to put all the pieces of my life back inside of it neatly. Then again, I opened it the moment I discovered my brother’s birth certificate.
As soon as I get my drink, I call Gray on the phone and let him know where I am. I never made it to the job in Sweetheart. For some reason, I can’t leave Asheville. Not yet. I need to find out who my brother is and where I come from.
That’s not the only reason you’re here. A little voice inside my head reminds me. Alright, maybe I’ve been trying to find the courage to see a certain bull rider with a shocking blue gaze and the filthiest mouth I’ve ever heard. A mouth that was all over me that night.
“Want me to drive up so you have someone with you?” Gray offers. He was a teenager when I was ten. He caught some of the boys from my school bullying me and quickly put a stop to it. After that, he was my hero and I followed him around everywhere. At least, until mom and I moved away to a farm in Kentucky. It had always been her dream to own a farm, a place with some land and chickens she could raise. That same place fell into foreclosure a month ago.
“I have things under control,” I tell him.
He peppers me with questions and scenarios, demanding to know if I’m meeting him in a public place. He’d be horrified to know that I went alone with a man to his hotel room last week.