Total pages in book: 141
Estimated words: 141676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 567(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 141676 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 708(@200wpm)___ 567(@250wpm)___ 472(@300wpm)
Oops.
At first, I told myself I would only wear it for deception, but it’s becoming a habit.
Now, it practically lives on my finger, feeling so natural I honestly forget it’s there. But I should have thought harder about the repercussions.
“Um.” I feel my face blazing and I look down at the table to avoid her gaze. She saw what it was like when Liam left.
The way I cried and yelled and swore to everyone that I’d never let a man use me as a Junie punching bag again.
“You’re engaged,” Gran hisses breathlessly. “You’re… you’re engaged to Dexter, aren’t you?”
I can’t argue with the truth, can I?
Especially when it’s really a spectacular lie.
I’m sitting right in front of her, wearing his freaking ring.
“I’m sorry, Nana. Honestly,” I say helplessly. “We were going to make a formal announcement soon but I just…”
But nothing.
I stop, deflated and out of excuses.
I should have thought this through before.
The moment Dexter fake proposed and gave me a ring, the moment his mom knew about us, I should have just fessed up and told her.
“How long, girl?” she asks firmly.
“A couple weeks,” I hedge. “Not long at all. Again, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, I just…”
She reaches over the table and takes my hand—the one with the ring—holding on like she’s drowning.
It’s like she wants me to look at her, to really see her in a way you don’t when you’re living ordinary days with your family.
But I do.
I see her wrinkled skin, the way she wears tiny scars like medals and her fingerprints are almost worn away by a lifetime of work.
I see the fierceness in her eyes, the hope and excitement she’s barely holding back, the promises of a future she desperately wants for me.
And I see a prayer on her lips when they tremble. The woman who had to stand in for both of my parents, who raised me and adored me like no one else ever will, pouring her life into wishing me the absolute best.
“I understand,” she says quietly. “Telling the world you’re engaged—starting a new chapter—it’s wonderful, but it’s so scary, June bug.”
“Y-yeah. Everyone knew about Liam,” I whisper. Not a lie, but it’s not admitting the truth, either, because right now I am scared out of my wits.
I’m freaking out about what comes next.
About what these crazy colliding feelings mean.
But she looks at me with eyes that are both too old and too wise to belong to a humble baker. She looks at me like she knows something she shouldn’t—like maybe she knows it’s not what it seems.
“That doesn’t mean things will end the same way they did with Liam,” she says firmly.
“I hope not.” My shrug isn’t nearly as relaxed as it should be.
The truth is, the emotions sweeping through her are a fraction of what I feel when I confront the hard reality.
It’s going to hurt like hell when this strange, beautiful thing with Dexter ends.
Even though I don’t want it to.
The realization that we’ll be over before we’ve really begun makes my chest hurt, even though I’ve known it for a long time.
And if it’s meant to end, shouldn’t we talk about that too?
Shouldn’t we plan our exit sooner?
So I can figure out how I plan on hitting the cold, cold ground without my heart exploding into so many fragments I’ll never put it back together again.
I get back to Dexter’s house late and find him already there, which is unusual.
After seeing his vehicle in the garage, I wander through the house until I find him in the enormous library, my traitor cat curled up on his desk like he owns it.
He looks up when I enter.
“Welcome back, Sweet Stuff. Good day?”
There’s something tired about his smile.
“If by good, you mean Nana finding out about the engagement, then yeah, it was dandy.” I gnaw at my bottom lip. “She saw the ring, Dex. I think her eyes left her head for a few seconds.”
He sits up straighter and closes a notebook, dislodging Catness, who glares at both of us for having the nerve to knock him off his pedestal.
“How’d she take it, after the initial shock?” he asks.
“Oh, you know.” I shrug, sorting my feelings and trying to figure out which ones I should let show on my face. “She took it pretty well, actually. I’d say she’s pleased.”
A total understatement, but at the same time, I don’t know how to be more enthusiastic given the circumstances.
“She likes you, you know.”
“Convenient,” he throws back smoothly.
But why doesn’t his smile reach his eyes?
I reach across the desk and give him a kiss. Although his fingers trail across the shell of my ear, there’s something oddly absent about him today.
Like not all of him is fully here at the moment. With me.
So, maybe this isn’t the best time for the conversation I’ve been wrangling in the back of my mind.