Total pages in book: 81
Estimated words: 75289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75289 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 376(@200wpm)___ 301(@250wpm)___ 251(@300wpm)
Wanting to keep myself busy, I trudge through the snow, heading out toward the shed, my body already starting to sweat at the mere idea of having to walk in there, but luckily, my afternoon with Nick has left me so worked up that I might just have the balls to actually get further than the door.
My nerves reach an all-time high, and I remind myself that I was a badass lumberjack today, and if the shed monster wants to come for me, then I’ll happily show him the new tricks I learned with a saw. I get the door open, and with the remaining sunlight, I’m able to quickly find Nana’s old tubs of Christmas decorations. She always went hard when it came to turning our home into a winter wonderland, and I’m not going to lie, I’m slightly horrified by the mounds of tubs staring back at me. But I can manage . . . right?
Shit.
Realizing these old tubs aren’t going to move themselves, I start digging them out while repeating over and over again that the shed monster isn’t real. I drag them out onto the snow-covered grass, and the minute they’re all out, I hastily shut the shed doors, not having realized that my whole body is covered in a sheer layer of nervous sweat.
I try to calm myself as I drag the heavy tubs toward the door, and just as I grab the final one, a small blue hatchback pulls to a stop outside my home.
I pause, my brows furrowed as I watch the car door open, and when a familiar head of hair steps out into the chilly evening, carrying not one, but four bottles of wine, a cheesy-as-fuck grin stretches across my face.
Sarah grins right back. “News of your afternoon is spreading through town like wildfire,” she says, grabbing one of the bottles by the neck and holding it up as she trudges up the driveway. “Figured you need a few of these.”
“Oh, thank God,” I sigh with relief, all but dropping to my knees.
“Did you really have to abandon two separate trucks and get stranded on the side of the road for an hour?”
“Two hours,” I tell her, immediately pulling her into my arms for a big hug the moment she reaches the porch. “Without heating, and with a broody asshole who insisted on dredging up the past.”
“Oh shit. Good thing I brought more than one bottle.”
“You have no idea how happy I am to see you.”
Sarah smiles wide before waltzing straight through the front door. “I’ll pour the wine,” she calls over her shoulder. “You bring those tubs in, and I’ll find the Christmas tunes. Then we can get fucked up decorating and talking shit about Nicholas Stone.”
Warmth spreads through my chest, and I grab the tub on top, following her in. “It’s like music to my ears.”
13
NICK
It’s been four long-ass days since Blair returned home to Blushing, and every minute of those four days has been nothing but a nightmare for me.
Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating just a little bit, but for the first time in six long years, I’m starting to feel hope, and that’s what’s causing me this insane grief. Hope is dangerous, and fuck, I’ve already watched her walk away once. I sure as hell won’t survive it again. And that right there is why having her back home is a nightmare.
Fuck. I love her.
Ever since I took off with her electric heater, I haven’t been able to stop replaying that afternoon in my head. The words we threw at each other, each one of them filled with venom, were a hard pill to swallow. I said things I probably wouldn’t have had we been capable of talking like mature adults, and I’m sure she admitted to things she wasn’t ready to say. But in the grand scheme of things, all that matters is that she’s still hurting.
Fuck my feelings, fuck my pain. I can handle them, but what I can’t handle is knowing that she’s spent the last six years in agony. It kills me.
All this time, I thought she was living it up in New York, happy as a fucking clam as she made leaps and bounds in her career. Last I’d heard from Olivia, Blair was dating some big-time lawyer and living in her expensive city apartment. But what fucks with my head is if she had all of that, everything she wanted, everything she left me for, then why the hell is she still hurting?
She told me that leaving Blushing and walking away from me was the biggest mistake she’s ever made, and those words haven’t stopped playing on repeat in my head. If she felt that way, then why the hell didn’t she come home sooner? Why didn’t she pick up the fucking phone and call me? Because she has no fucking intention of being with me, that’s why. She’s hell-bent on heading back to New York and starting her new business. She doesn’t give a shit about the destruction she’ll leave behind . . . again.