Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 76573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 76573 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 383(@200wpm)___ 306(@250wpm)___ 255(@300wpm)
He looked defeated. “No. That makes it sound terrible. But you’re… guarded.”
Immediately I felt destabilized. I didn’t like being angry, especially not twice in the same day. I wasn’t used to it. Almost nothing got to me, and it was a point of pride. I didn’t want to be feel like this. And the moment I saw the defeat on Luke’s face, I wanted to take it all back.
“I’m trying to protect myself and my kids,” I said, my voice a little shaky. “I’m scared, Luke.”
“I know,” he said, his voice soft. He closed the distance between us and wrapping his arms around me in a tight hug.
His scent surrounded me like a cocoon of safety. The instant he touched me, I felt all the fight drain out of me at once. All the anger evaporated like water from hot concrete.
How did he feel so good? How did his smell and touch feel like home to me, already?
Luke was right. I had been guarded and calculated around him, the entire time I’d known him. Even in the moments when we had connected, I’d always had one foot out some door in my mind, ready to abandon ship if anything felt remotely too serious.
But here we were.
Things were serious, regardless of all my attempts to control things. And right now, under the trees and the stars in Luke’s stupidly magical backyard, I didn’t want to be in control anymore.
14
Luke
“You swear didn’t know it was me at first?” Cam asked me.
He was still tucked against my chest, and my heart was pounding so hard I swore he must be able to feel it.
I’d basically admitted that I’d been lying to him—lying by omission, but it still didn’t make me feel any less rotten.
“Of course not,” I said as I held him. “I didn’t go on that app knowing it was you. Lizzy suckered me into it because she knows I’ve been a sad sack for years.”
“And then you just saw some other sad sack on there, and told him to do one thing a day that scares him, huh?”
I let out a laugh that felt more like a sigh of relief.
“I just knew I liked the way you talked,” I continued, pausing a moment. Words were spilling out of me now and I wasn’t sure what might come out next. “You... you clearly needed someone. And I know it’s selfish, but I wanted to be that person so badly.”
He softened in my arms, sinking against my chest like a wounded animal. It broke my heart, but also somehow made it feel ten times bigger than usual. Cam was magic, in that way.
“I did need someone,” he admitted. “So badly. And you know I didn’t want to date anybody but you.”
It was like he’d just knocked the wind right out of me.
“What?”
He gave me puppy-dog eyes, shaking his head. “I talked about one day dating other people because I felt like it was what I should want.”
“But… you don’t?”
He snorted. “Of course not. I want what I can’t have.”
“A billion dollars and a private jet?”
Luckily, my joke landed and he rewarded me with a hearty laugh. “You know I want you, Luke.”
Hearing it made me feel like I had something fizzy deep inside me. “Well,” I said, taking a deep breath. “That feels even better than a billion dollars and a private jet.”
“Talking to Phlox—to you—has felt like a lifeline for me, some nights. Hell, I probably should have gotten a therapist, considering how much I needed to talk to someone.”
“Definitely,” I said. “I mean, I love that you were talking to me, but I’m surprised you don’t have a therapist already.”
“Because I have always just been able to handle everything,” he said, frustration in his voice. “My whole life. I’ve had it together. And I want to have it together now.”
“Little secret, Cam,” I said. “Nobody ever has it all together.”
“I hate when you say things I should already know.”
I pulled back to look him in the eyes again, keeping my hands on his shoulders as if he might dissolve into thin air if I let him go. “When I found out it was you, I felt like a fucking monster, but I couldn’t stop,” I said. “Like I said. Selfish.”
“It’s okay,” he assured me. “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay.”
But guilt was still settled in my veins like sludge.
“I’m not sure it is okay,” I said. I gingerly reached one hand up to run my fingers through his hair. “This is going to sound bad.”
“Then definitely say it.”
I swallowed. “I wanted to protect you. To make sure you didn’t get fucking burned in this world. Dating is god awful, most of the time.”
“Well that makes me feel kind of special,” he said, the look on his face so thankful and lovely I could just about have died and gone to heaven.