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)
Ash’s eyes burned with blue-gray fire. “I have never wanted anything as much in my entire life. I just didn’t think it would be fair to—”
Truman knocked him onto his back on the bed and kissed him with everything he had.
“You’re such an idiot!” Truman crowed. “I can’t believe you said you didn’t want me to come here when what you meant was I don’t want you to come here unless you really want to and with full understanding of the reality. You get that’s super confusing, right?”
“I…I just didn’t want you to have to give up anything.”
“Hey.” Truman looked at his beautiful face and made sure he was listening. “I would be giving up things that matter very little to me and gaining things that matter very much.”
Tears came to Ash’s eyes again, but this time, a smile accompanied them. He pulled Truman down on top of him and wrapped those warm arms around him.
“I can’t believe you would do this for me,” Ash murmured.
“I’m doing this for us,” Truman said. He didn’t mention that it was precisely what Ash had done to be with his mother, because that seemed to kind of kill the romance, but he thought about it.
“Us,” Ash murmured and kissed Truman. The kiss deepened, until Ash pulled away to exclaim, “Greta!”
“Um, what?”
“We left Greta out there.”
Truman giggled. “Oh, right.”
They trooped out of the bedroom to find Greta sitting among her carnivorous plants with her eyes closed.
“Hit me,” she said without opening her eyes.
“Um. Any chance you might be interested in making this swap a little bit more…permanent?” Truman asked.
A slow smile spread across Greta’s face.
“I was going to ask you the same thing.”
They spent the rest of the evening talking, and by the time the wine ran out and Greta had to crash for a few hours before heading back to the airport, they had a viable plan.
Chapter 29
Greta
Truman and Ash had trooped back to Ash’s hand in hand when the wine ran out, and Greta had fallen asleep on the couch for a few hours, setting three alarms on her phone so she wouldn’t oversleep and miss her flight.
She’d thought the first alarm was what jarred her from sleep, but it was a knock at the door and then the sound of a key in the lock. Assuming Truman forgot something, Greta grunted and pulled the blanket back over her head.
A moment later, she felt a weight on the cushion next to her, and a hand settled on her head. That didn’t seem like something Truman would do. Greta sat up and pulled the blanket away.
“Mom. What are you doing here?”
Her mother looked awful, eyes puffy and nose red.
“I think I’ve always known you’d leave me,” she said. But she sounded less accusatory and more mournful than before. She put a hand on Greta’s cheek, and Greta leaned into it. “I’m sorry I didn’t realize how unhappy you really were here,” her mom said softly. “I…I never wanted that.”
“You just wanted me to be nearby.”
Her mother nodded. “I like having all my girls around me. I like knowing where you are and what you’re doing.”
“You know you can still know those things if I don’t live near you.”
“How?”
“Mom. You just ask.”
Nell let out a bark of laughter that Greta recognized; she’d heard herself do it when she was nervous.
“And you’ll tell me?”
Greta nodded soberly. “I will. I’ll be excited to tell you because I’ll be excited about my life. Don’t you…” She screwed up her courage. “Don’t you want that for me? A life I’m actively excited about, rather than one I just happened to be born into?”
Nell Russakoff tugged at the worn edge of the blanket covering her daughter. “Yes. Of course I do. I want that for you. I’m just sad for myself.”
Greta sat up straighter. “Thanks for telling me. I’m really sorry that you have to be sad for me to have the life I want. And I hope you know how hard it’s been for me to realize that I could leave. It hasn’t been an easy decision. I love you. I love our family. I want us all to be close. But I can’t give up my chance at the life I want so that you won’t be sad.”
“I know that,” Nell said. “We know.”
Greta twisted her fingers together. “Is Dad really mad?”
“No. Your father agrees with you. He’s just protective of me.”
“He does?” Greta’s heart soared.
“You know what’s funny,” Nell mused, finally leaning back in the couch and taking her hand off Greta’s.
“What?”
“This is what your father and I did. Left our parents because the lives they lived weren’t what we wanted. He didn’t want to be in the restaurant business like his father, and I didn’t want to live in the city like my parents.”
Greta had heard about her grandparents in dribs and drabs over the years—her dad’s father had owned a sandwich shop in Cleveland; her mom’s parents had lived in downtown Columbus—but she’d never exactly put it together that her parents had left them rather than simply moving away as so many people did from their families of origin.