Total pages in book: 18
Estimated words: 16767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 84(@200wpm)___ 67(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 16767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 84(@200wpm)___ 67(@250wpm)___ 56(@300wpm)
Most of all, I loved Peter Valentine, and I wanted him to want me back.
Robin’s orange curls bounced as she nodded emphatically. “It’s a sure thing. That man would be an idiot not to want you. What’s not to want? You’re…” Her praise rant cut off as she caught sight of something over my shoulder.
“Perfect,” a deep, familiar voice finished her sentence. I turned to see Pete walking toward me between rows of cubicles. “Funny, thoughtful, kind, magnetic. Smart, driven, creative, adventurous.”
He was wearing well-worn jeans and a royal blue T-shirt with orange lettering that read, “Florida Man.”
And he was holding a puppy. My puppy.
I stood up, suddenly feeling awkward as hell. I didn’t know what to do with my hands, and my stomach was trying to decide if it needed a Knockwood barf bag.
Someone muttered, “Oh, he’s cuter than in the pics.”
Someone else added, “White-hot.”
“Hi,” I said, when what I really wanted to say was please.
I swallowed. Waiting. I was afraid to say anything that might make the illusion pop and disappear.
“You left this behind,” he said, but instead of pointing to the puppy, he pointed to his own heart. “It’s yours. It belongs with you.”
My eyes filled with tears as I scraped my upper lip with my teeth to keep from crying. “I was coming to get it. I can’t live without it.” My voice broke half a second before I lunged for him.
Thankfully, someone grabbed the puppy before I could accidentally squash her. I held on to Pete like he was in danger of falling off a cliff.
“I’m sorry it took me so long,” he said into my hair in between kisses all over the side of my face. “I fell so hard for you, Jonah. I… I couldn’t handle it when you left. I got in bed and didn’t come out. I couldn’t bear to read the article yet. I didn’t know. I would have been here sooner, but—”
I stopped him with a kiss. As soon as my lips were on his, the familiar taste of him calmed me down. I finally felt like I could breathe again.
He pulled back and held my face between his hands. “I love you, too,” he said softly. “So much. I’ll move here. I’ll learn how to live in the city again. I’ll—”
I stopped him again with another kiss, quick and hard. “No.”
Then it was my coworkers who spilled the beans. “He already quit, bro,” Eric said. “Moving to the back of beyond or some shit.”
Robin sighed and waved him away with the hand that wasn’t busy holding the puppy. “Alaska,” she corrected with a wink at Pete. “He’s going to make a grand gesture, he said.”
Pete’s arms stayed locked around me. “Grand gesture?” he asked with a teasing grin. “What exactly did you have planned?”
My heart soared as our new future unrolled wide and expansive ahead of us, filled with the unknown but so incredibly promising.
“I was going to hire one of those trick planes that writes messages in the sky and fly it around over Knockwood to spell out my declaration of love.”
Pete snorted. “You were going to fly it?”
I nodded. “It’s fine. I’ve been practicing with YouTube videos, and I read the entire instruction manual from cover to cover. It was gonna be fine.”
He leaned in and nuzzled my neck. The rich vibration of his laugh rumbled through his chest before I heard him whisper.
“Never have I ever been this happy before.”
***