Total pages in book: 129
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125117 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 500(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Greta rolled her eyes. That sounded like Ash. “And you let him get away with that?”
Truman looked up.
“You mean as opposed to looking the man I fell for in the face and being like, ‘no, I demand that you give me things you don’t have after I move somewhere you don’t want me’? Um, yeah.”
Greta shook her head. “No, as opposed to, like, asking him what he meant and talking about it.”
“I tried to get him to talk about it, and he said he couldn’t. Then he basically begged me to leave him alone, so I did.”
“Listen, I’m not trying to do Ramona levels of witchy meddling here—P.S., has she been sending you strangely cryptic texts that, like, come true?”
“Yes!”
“Freak. Anyway, I’ve known Ash a long time. If he said he doesn’t feel like he has anything to give you, it means he’s scared that what he has to offer isn’t enough for you, not that he won’t give you anything. You need to talk to him.”
She held up her phone.
“Um.” Truman’s expression was nervous, but he was nodding.
“I’ll just tell him to come over, shall I?”
“Ugggghhhh,” Truman groaned, burying his face in his hands. “Fine.”
Greta dialed. “Ash Sundahl, I am at my house right now, and I demand your presence! That’s right, I said demand, because I’m leaving first thing tomorrow morning, and I must hug you.”
She hung up. Truman let out a breath of relief.
“He’ll come over, and we’ll talk about this,” Greta said.
A buzz ran through her. She felt powerful.
“Did you know,” she confided manically to Truman, “that you don’t have to accept whatever happens to you?! That you have power over your life?!”
“Some people do,” Truman mumbled. “I gotta take a shower before he gets here. I don’t want him seeing me like this.”
“I think some eye drops and an ice pack might serve you better.” Greta grabbed the former from the bathroom and set Truman to making the latter by wrapping crushed ice in a towel that she applied to his eyes.
Twenty minutes later, she got a text from Ash that said Omw.
Chapter 28
Truman
Before Greta burst through the door, Truman had been chatting with Germaine and Charlotte. He’d gotten as far as telling them what Ash said about not wanting him to uproot his whole life for him when Charlotte had dumped a wall of text. Often, when Charlotte wall-of-texted, it was simply because she’d switched to using voice-to-text, but sometimes—and this was one of those times—it was because she believed so fully in her opinion that she had to let you know right away. She was, it must be said, right approximately 93 percent of the time, by Truman’s calculations. So he’d grudgingly read:
Truman I love you immensely which is why I need to tell you that you MUST not tuck your tail between your legs and slink away! (Too late. How had she known?) You have always wanted a partner—like a full-on, share everything, we-are-a-team PARTNER. The dickwads you’ve dated haven’t wanted that, so you’ve sanded off the corners of your desire until it’s a damn circle. Sphere. Whatever. And NOW, Ash doesn’t believe you want that because he can’t imagine someone wanting that, but you DO WANT IT SO YOU HAVE TO TELL HIM! You rock so hard but sometimes you are your own worst enemy and I want to SHAKE YOU because you’re INFURIATING but I do love you. Goodbye.
Okay, so she might also have been using voice-to-text.
Truman hadn’t had a moment to think about it because of the aforementioned bursting in, but now, as he sat on Greta’s couch with his head back and an ice pack over his eyes, as she walked around greeting her plants, he went over it again. He could see why Ash would think he would only be moving here because he did what other people wanted. He had, after all, done literally that. And he could see that Ash would suspect it in this instance, given the whole only knowing one another for three weeks thing.
But…but the part that he had to find a way to tell Ash was the other part. The wanting him part. The wanting to be with him all the time part. The wanting to be involved in all aspects of his life part. But in a partner-y way, not a stalker-y or savior-y way. The…the love part.
The doorbell rang, and Truman snatched the ice pack off his eyes, prayed it had done its job, and shoved it under the cushion. He heard Greta’s jubilant exclamation as she launched herself into a hug and cringed, because he knew so well, so intimately, what it felt like to be wrapped up in Ash’s arms.
Fuck.
“Where’s Truman?” Ash asked. Then, “Oh, Truman.”
Ash put a hand to his hair, changed his mind, and tugged on his sweater, changed his mind, and stuck his hands in his armpits, hugging himself. He looked exquisitely uncomfortable.