Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 91434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91434 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 457(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
“Bottle is fine,” she states, and I walk around and hand it to her.
“Would you like to sit?” I ask, and you could cut the tension with a knife. The air between us is electric, yet there is a huge elephant in the room.
“I think I need to sit,” she admits, walking around and sitting at the edge of the couch. Her hands are on her knees, with the bottle in both hands, as she looks at all the pictures I have of Saige and me, as well as a couple of pictures of my parents. “You’ve made a beautiful home,” she compliments. I can hear the heaviness of her voice at the end, the pain it must have taken to say it.
“Thank you,” I say, bringing the bottle to my lips, “it means a lot.” She takes a pull of her beer, and I’m jealous of a fucking beer bottle.
“So,” I say, sitting in front of her and not beside her, “you said you had questions.”
“I do,” she confirms, and I see her finger peeling off the label. “I want to know it all. What happened? When did it happen? Why didn’t you tell me? I want to know everything, really. I think I need that for me to move on, so we can both move on.”
I swallow down the lump that went from the pit of my stomach to my throat when the words sink in. What if I don’t want to move on, then what? Where will I… “I think we’ll start with the first question,” I say, and I don’t know why, but it’s going to be good to finally get it all out there. “They came to see me in the hospital. I had just gotten there and was yelling for you when Winston came in.” She listens to me. “Pretended to care, see if I was okay. He told me Waylon didn’t make it. He was crushed but then said he had to do what he needed to do to protect his brother and their family. I didn’t understand it at first. Until two weeks later when I went into work. Winston and his father came to see me, said they would like to take me out to lunch.” I shake my head. “I should have known something was happening, but I was still shaken up over what just happened. I was worried about you and how you would be healing. I was worried about Charlie, who was a ticking time bomb, and I was afraid I would wake up and he would be gone too. It was just too much. I think they knew my head wasn’t there. So they took me out to the golf course for lunch. Sat me down, said that I was like a brother to Waylon. Then said there was rumbling that people were going to try to say Waylon was drunk even though his tox report came back clean. They wanted to make sure I would be able to stand behind Waylon, since he would have done it for me. I was on the fence, not sure. They must have sensed it because then the promises came. They wanted me to take over the big project. Knew I was going to kill it. They told me all the right things. I would have my own team; it would be huge. But the biggest thing is that they would help me create my firm. Everleigh, you had to know the only thing I thought about was how it was going to help us,” I say, and she lifts a hand to wipe away the tears, breaking my heart.
“Like, you have to know that the only thing I thought about was you. Was us. Was the future for us, making sure you were taken care of.” I swallow down the lump. “They knew they had me on the hook, but it wasn’t good enough for them because then came the blackmail.” I laugh bitterly. “They would take away the contract they had with my father. The only contract he had. The only one that was keeping him afloat. They were already six months behind in payments, something I didn’t know, but if they took it away, chances are they were not going to fucking pay him, and he would have to close the doors.” The anger grips me exactly how it did that day. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t let him suffer because of me. So I told them I would do whatever they wanted. I would do it for Waylon because I want to believe he would do it for me.”
“He wouldn’t do shit for you,” she hisses. “He was the most self-centered asshole.”
“I know that now,” I admit, “but I did what I did, and I have to live with that. Coming home to you every single day, knowing I was hiding it from you, killed me inside. You have to know this. I wanted to tell you everything, but then again, I didn’t want it to touch you. I didn’t think it would blow up the way it did. I thought I was protecting you.”