Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 69266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69266 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
I tried it on a few plants and felt even more foolish. A couple looked at me oddly when they found me trying to say hello to a fern. I hurried away, wondering if this was some alarming prank Nora had laid on me. But she hadn’t come back. So, I continued to walk the shelving.
Then, I came in front of a small potted cactus. It was spiky and imperfect. The lone cactus on the shelf.
“All alone, too?” I asked it.
A prickly loner felt all too familiar.
I picked up the cactus and waited to see if it would talk back, as Nora had mentioned. I felt dumb, but somehow, it almost felt like it did. I tucked it under my arm, careful not to prick myself on one of its spikes, and then walked to the register.
Nora stood, speaking animatedly with an older woman with round cheeks and a kind smile. “Oh, here he is. Did you find something?”
I held up the cactus. “This one.”
Nora’s lips quirked up. “He’s adorable.”
“Good choice,” the woman said.
“West, this is Apple. Apple, Weston Wright.”
“So good to meet you,” Apple said pleasantly. “It’s nice to meet the man that my Nora has been gushing about.”
I flushed slightly at that comment. “Nice to meet you, ma’am.”
“Ma’am,” Apple said, glancing at Nora. “I like this one.”
Nora grinned. “Me too.”
“Ah, young love,” she mused, taking the cactus out of my arm.
I sputtered at that word. Love. Nora met my eyes, and then we both quickly looked away. We hadn’t said that word. I mean…I was leaving. I was going back to LA. That word would only ruin everything we had right now. It didn’t matter how I felt. Not truly. Because even if nothing worked out with Campbell and Cosmere, then I was still going to take the producing job.
“Apple,” Nora admonished, “we’re just roommates.”
“Bah!” she said. “You young people and your labels. Back in my day, if you looked at each other the way that you two do, you’d be past dating and halfway to engaged.”
Nora laughed. “That’s not really how it’s done anymore.”
“So I’ve heard. It sounds exhausting and complicated.”
Couldn’t fault her there. It was complicated.
Before Nora could say anything else, her phone started to ring. She looked down at it with alarm. “Uh, excuse me for a minute.”
She took a few steps away, but I didn’t miss the name she uttered incredulously. “Tamara?”
“She’s special, you know?” Apple said as she handed me the receipt for my new cactus.
“I do know.”
Apple arched an eyebrow. “Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Because it looks like you’re going to let the best thing to happen to you slip through your fingers like the last idiot who hurt her.”
I gaped at her. “I promise you, ma’am, I have no intention of hurting her.”
She guffawed at me. “No one intends to hurt someone. They just do it.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. Guilt settled into the pit of my stomach. I had something special here, but I had something special in LA, too. I didn’t see a way that I could possibly have both.
“You let that girl know how you feel before it’s too late,” Apple added.
I gulped and nodded. Before it was too late. When was that? Fuck.
Nora’s voice rose. “I don’t have to listen to this!”
Then, she hung up and strode back toward me like a thundercloud. “Let’s go.”
“What happened?”
She shook her head and controlled her expression enough to give Apple a hug and tell her good-bye. By the time we got back to her truck, she had clouded over again.
“Nora,” I said, grabbing her arm. “Talk to me.”
She sighed heavily, deflating like a balloon. “August broke off the engagement.”
I froze at those words. The careful delivery, as if she had no emotions about them. But I could hear how brittle she’d sounded underneath it. I hadn’t heard that from her in so long. I hated the way it had come out.
I wanted to punch August so bad right now. He’d better not fucking think this was his way back in because that wasn’t fucking happening.
“Really?”
“Yes, Tamara called to congratulate me.”
“Whatever for?”
I held my breath, feeling like I’d created a prophecy and it was about to come true.
She met my gaze with a look, like she was drowning. “Because apparently, he told her he still loved me.”
24
Nora
August still loved me.
Ice snapped under my feet, dragging me beneath a freezing pond. I felt chilled to the bone at those words.
All that work I’d done to get over him. All that time I’d wanted nothing more than to not feel like this anymore. Everything I’d been through because of him. And now—now—he claimed to still love me?
“And…how do you feel about that?” West asked carefully.
So carefully. Too carefully.
I wanted to reassure him. I wanted to tell him that I felt nothing about it. But it would be a lie. I’d thought I’d moved on completely, but first love stuck with you. I knew what August and I had was never ever going to be the same. How could I forgive him for what he’d done? Saying he was in love with me didn’t flip a switch.