Total pages in book: 65
Estimated words: 60933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 60933 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 305(@200wpm)___ 244(@250wpm)___ 203(@300wpm)
NASH AND TALLULAH
“Even after you destroyed me, all I wanted was you. Why can’t I get over you?”
CHAPTER ONE
NASH
Most of the time, I kept myself busy. It helped distract me. Problem was I needed fucking distracting every damn day. This should have gotten easier. Isn’t there a point when someone heals from heartbreak? When would I stop loving Tallulah? It was fucking time. I had suffered long enough.
I knew once everyone was back in town it was going to be an adjustment. Once again, life after Tallulah screwing with me. She had become a part of us. Everything in my life she had fit into so perfectly. One year wasn’t enough time to get over that, I guess. At least not for me.
Asa moved in to my biggest guest bedroom yesterday. Gunner and Willa were taking the other guest bedroom while they were in town. Seeing them together wasn’t easy, but seeing any happy couple was hard. It reminded me of all I had lost.
The back door opened, and Asa stepped out with a cup of coffee in his hand.
“Slept late,” I said, raising my eyebrows.
He grinned, then shrugged. “Five years, man. Five fucking long years. We had some catching up to do.”
I didn’t need the details on what that catching up entailed. My sex life was nonexistent. “I’m surprised you came back last night.”
He shrugged. “I’d have stayed, but I don’t want to rush her. I came back, made a life decision based on her, and then went and bluntly told her she was it for me. Then we…” He paused and cut his eyes in my direction. “Uh, well, you know.”
Yeah, I knew. I nodded.
A car door slammed, and we both turned our heads to see Ryker coming around the corner of the house. He looked like a man on a mission. I could see the tension in his shoulders, and I braced myself. Something was up.
Ryker took the steps up to the back porch two at a time. When he got to the top, he stopped and looked at me shoving his hands in the pockets of his jeans, then sighed heavily. “She’s here, man. She’s in fucking Lawton.”
I didn’t have to ask him who. There was only one “she” that would affect me. I tried to act as if I didn’t care when my chest felt like it was being twisted inside. With a shrug, I picked up my bottle of water and took a drink. “Her mom lives here,” I replied.
I didn’t miss the concerned look between Asa and Ryker. They both knew how I felt about Tallulah. Asa didn’t know the details of the breakup, but Ryker did. I’d lost my damn mind there for a while. Ryker had been the one to pull me back when I tried like hell to destroy myself. Without him, I’d have probably lost my damn job or ended up in jail, or worse, I’d be dead.
“Who told you?” I asked him, wishing I didn’t care.
“West called me. Maggie ran into her this morning at the Drip,” he said.
The Drip was a new coffee place in town with fancy shit. Figures she’d go there. She likes her fancy coffee. The kitchen counter had once been covered with all her coffee supplies. It took her so damn long to make one cup of coffee with all that crap. I’d teased her about leaving no room for anything else. Complained that my Keurig was being shoved in the corner. And now I’d give anything in this fucking world for it to all be back in there, her standing in her baggy cut-off sweatpants and fuzzy socks.
I took another drink of water. My chest felt so damn constricted, breathing was hard. I hated remembering, but then again it was all I had of her. Memories.
“She didn’t get an invite to the field dedication,” Ryker told me. “I swear.”
Yeah, she had. I had sent her one. I hadn’t thought she would come, but that lost part of me that missed her had hoped she would. Believing that she felt nothing for me anymore seemed so fucking impossible when she still owned me. I woke up with her on my mind and went to bed at night wishing she was in my arms.
“I know she and Aurora keep in touch, but trust me, man, she wouldn’t have invited her. She knows what you went through,” Ryker assured me.
“I know she didn’t,” I said, then stood up and looked at him. “I did.”
Ryker said nothing as he stood there, but I could see the pain in his eyes. He was worried about me. Worried seeing her was going to set me off again. We had this new venture, and the football camps started in a couple weeks. There was no time for me to fall apart again.