Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 153268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 766(@200wpm)___ 613(@250wpm)___ 511(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153268 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 766(@200wpm)___ 613(@250wpm)___ 511(@300wpm)
“Have you eaten anything?” Row tried to change the subject.
“Not since you were taken to the hospital,” I admitted. And that was hours ago.
“There should be an Oh Henry! in my messenger bag. They brought it here, right?”
“I think so.” I stood up, walking over to a small counter overlooking the window and flipping his bag open. Sure enough, there were two in there.
“Want one?” I unwrapped the bar and took a bite, groaning in satisfaction.
Row snorted. “No thanks. I’d rather chew on my own foo—” He stopped abruptly when he realized what he was admitting.
I ripped another bite of chocolate, studying him intently. “You don’t like these bars, do you?” I walked over to him.
“Sure I do. Sometimes.” He was quiet for a second. “No. I don’t. Fuck, Cal, they’re awful. How could you like them?”
I sat back next to him, nuzzling my face in the crook of his neck. “They remind me of a really great moment in my childhood.”
“What moment?” He side-eyed me.
“Well, it was kind of…the first chocolate I ever had.” I blinked five times in a row. “My parents were anal retentive about my teeth and wouldn’t let me have anything sweet. Fast forward to age four, and I’m in my babushka’s room—she lived with us before she passed away. So there I was, being my usual nosy self. You know, snooping and minding everyone else’s business.”
“Shocking,” he commented wittily.
“I open her bedside drawer and see an Oh Henry! I immediately decide to eat it.”
Row grinned. “Was it everything you’ve ever wanted and more?”
“It was…” I fought my gag reflex. “From 1992.”
Row tipped his head back, plastering a hand over his face, emitting a dark chuckle. “Classic Cal.”
“I remember thinking chocolate was so overrated. It was dry and brittle and tasted like sour grapes. I spent that entire weekend hugging the toilet like it was a freshly returned lover who came back from a warzone. Apparently, when my babushka got off the plane from the former Soviet Union as a refugee, Good Samaritans waited for them on the tarmac with baskets of food and blankets and whatnot. One of them handed out chocolate bars. She remembered the moment so fondly, she decided to save the Oh Henry! as a keepsake.”
“You ate her most fundamental memory?” He crossed his arms in a hot-guy way. “I’ve never heard something so you.”
“Even though it tasted horrible, it was technically my first chocolate. So I’m still fond of it, vomit bouts be damned. Now, for the last time, where do you get the Oh Henry! from, Row?”
“Fuck.” His smile collapsed.
I watched in fascination, my breath caged inside my throat.
He trained his gaze on the wall behind my head, avoiding eye contact. “I make them.”
“Hmm, come again?” Ideally on my tits. But honestly anywhere else would do too, I was tempted to add.
“I. Make. Them.” His nostrils flared. “They’re no longer in circulation. I knew you liked them. So I found a list of the ingredients online, tested the quantities a few times, and started making them for you. The wrappers were easy to print and apply,” he mumbled as an afterthought. “I saw a manual on YouTube. I did this because I…” He stopped, rubbing his face with his palm in frustration.
“Because what?” I choked back my tears.
“You’ve always been a picky eater and I didn’t want you to faint. I’d…” His jaw squared. “I’d have nightmares about it.”
Lacing my fingers through his, I said, “I’m sorry. I wish I were in your dreams, not nightmares.”
“Don’t worry, sweetheart, you star in both.” He pushed a hand into his hair. “My dreams. My nightmares. My fantasies. The only place you weren’t in was the place I wanted you to be most.”
“And where was that?”
“My reality.”
Our eyes met. I knew I was blinking like crazy. My heart begged me to open up, to take a chance, to dive into the deep end and try to swim, but my brain reminded me my one and only “relationship” had ended in emotional carnage I still hadn’t recovered from.
“But now?” His pupils burned with darkness and determination. “Now I know what it’s like to have you. And I never want to fall asleep because, as it turns out, my reality is better than anything a dream could ever conjure. Who are we kidding with this casual bullshit?” Row asked, brushing his knuckles along my temple softly. “I can’t do this anymore. I’m sorry, Dot. Loving you from up close is so much crueler than loving you from afar. It reminds me of all the things I’ll miss out on. All the shit that can’t be mine. Because the thing is…” He wet his lips. “You feel mine.”
“Am I your girl?”
“No.” He shook his head. “You’re my everything.”
Everything. The word was so final.
Panic skated through me. Not because I didn’t feel the same way, but because I did. I wanted to be with him too, consequences be damned. But if Franco had managed to break me so thoroughly with something that was puppy love at the time…what kind of wreckage would Row leave in his wake?