Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 67733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 339(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67733 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 339(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
“Pears,” she replies without reluctance. “No allergies, but I hate pears.”
“Any particular reason?”
“Texture. Taste. Got nailed in the back of the thigh once by a bully as a kid.”
“Fuck that. I won’t even let them look in my cart.” Her additional laughter lifts me up onto some sort of pedestal I never saw myself wanting to sit on. Pleased and proud to be here has me purring, “I can’t wait to see you again, beautiful.”
“Me either.”
The unexpected confession successfully renders me speechless.
“I gotta um…,”she verbally stumbles to end the conversation, “go get ready for work, but I’ll see you…early in the morning.”
“Not early enough.” My retort receives another snicker. “Remember to have a good day.”
“You too.”
Our call ends immediately after and – much like before – I’m tempted to instantly redial. But I don’t. I merely grip the device a little harder and let out a slow breath of gratitude.
Gabby could not have been more accurate.
I am overwhelmingly underprepared for what lies ahead with this woman.
And yet…I cannot be more excited about it.
Chapter 3
Harper
I should cancel.
Nodding to myself at the stoplight just a few miles from home, I repeat the sentence for the fifth time in my head.
I mean I really should cancel.
Why did I even say yes to begin with?!
Images of Tate’s cocky smirk paired to his dreamy stare suddenly flood my mind forcing me to shake my head in an attempt to banish them before blooming into full out fantasies.
Again.
Yeah, thinking about some guy who probably doesn’t know that there was life before Google while waiting for a family to review the transport plan regarding their son’s new lung wasn’t the best or most professional thing I did today.
I’d like to say I’ve done worse.
But I can’t.
Typically, once I step through the doors of the hospital or Assembly Required, the private nonprofit organ and tissue organization I work for, my mind flicks a switch, and it’s basically all business. And it needs to be. I don’t have one of those jobs you can phone in on occasion or get away coming in half-alert. I literally work in the life-or-death industry. One split moment with your head not in the game when it needs to be could be the difference between someone’s son or daughter or wife or husband or favorite uncle living another day or not. No, I – thankfully – don’t face the intense pressure that the surgeons and doctors and nurses do, but it’s definitely fucking up there when it’s go time, which is why I really can’t afford to spend any of those precious minutes daydreaming about some 6’3, light honey brown skinned, hunk that has me damn near breaking out in hives over the idea of never seeing him again.
And that is insane.
And I know it’s insane.
I know it’s fucking insane and still can’t stop myself from feeling this way.
Like, come on now, I logically know this isn’t healthy.
I don’t need textbooks or blog posts or a podcast to tell me these obsessive vibes are borderline – if not over the line – fucking crazy.
What I need is a solution or a cure all or at the very least an explanation for why I feel like this about someone I barely know, especially when I was married to someone that I never felt a fraction of this way about.
Fuck me…I’m broken, aren’t I?
The light turns green, and my foot slowly presses down on the accelerator.
Seriously, something has to be wrong with me.
Why else would I be this infatuated over a stranger? Am I that desperate? Is this simply about getting fucked because it has been far too long since that occurred? Am I trying to suddenly endure that totally normal slutting around phase that I just so happen to have never went through? Am I trying to prove to myself that despite the fact I couldn’t make a marriage work – and I really tried – that I’m not “damaged goods”? That I’m still desirable? That I can still do everything any other woman who has never failed a marriage can do?
Is this about proving something to the outside world?
Myself?
Arriving at another stoplight has me sighing in further annoyance.
Am I overthinking all of this?
The boy is making me breakfast not proposing.
For cripes sake, he is just a boy.
A young, Irish-accented boy who probably still shudders when he hears the number forty in reference to ages while I’m in that phase of self-negotiating that forty isn’t gonna be all that bad.
The light turns green again allowing me to propel myself forward once more.
Ugh, I should really fucking cancel.
Text him.
Lie and tell I’m too tired or it’s too late.
Pretend to be disinterested instead of so fucking excited.
I even told Nat all about him on my way to work this afternoon.
Everything I could fucking think of.
I think at one point I even described just how impressively straight his teeth are.