Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 79821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79821 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 399(@200wpm)___ 319(@250wpm)___ 266(@300wpm)
Tears burn the backs of my eyes as he slides the ring onto my finger. “I love you too, Samson Carter.”
“Next year, I’ll get you a real ring. One with a diamond.”
I smile up at him, not bothering to wipe my tears. “I don’t give a flip about a ring, as long as I have you.”
“Always.” He leans in and presses a chaste kiss to my lips. “Now, let’s go get those cupcakes, yeah?”
Chapter Three
Stella, Age 18
He never shows.
Chapter Four
Samson
Luna: You suck. Like, you really fucking suck. Tonight was supposed to be the night, but you just had to go and ruin it.
Luna: You told me always. That you’d love me always. That you’d be mine always. What a joke.
Luna: You’re a chicken-shit liar and a thief.
Luna: Okay, not a literal thief, but you stole my heart with your blue eyes and silver tongue. I’d like it back, because frankly, you’re not worthy of it.
Luna: I hate you.
Luna: I want to hate you.
Like the fucking masochist I am, I read over the last texts Stella sent for me the hundredth time in as many days. I read the fucking thread every night before bed, just to torture myself.
She’s right though. I am a chicken shit. I gave her up out of fear. I ran like a yellow-bellied coward.
Not because I didn’t want her, because I did.
Still do.
Always have, always will.
Stella just has this magnetism about her; anyone who spends a minute in her presence, can’t help but be drawn to her.
Even as a snot-nosed kid with knobby knees and an attitude bigger than any of us knew how to handle, I always found myself telling Orion to let her tag along.
Not because I was interested in her either—no, those feelings came much, much later—but because she was just this fucking ball of sunshine, and as a lonely punk-ass kid, I just wanted to bask in her light.
All she had to do was point her gap-toothed smile my way, and I’d feel lighter. Accepted. Happier. Loved, even, because God knows my foster family didn’t have any love to spare for the likes of me.
But Stella… she saw me.
And like an idiot, I threw her away.
“Fuck!” I shout, my voice bouncing off the wall of the dingy motel room I’ve called home for the last six months.
There’s so much I could have done better, starting with never taking this damn job.
If it wasn’t for my name on that dotted line, I would have turned my truck around the second my better sense kicked in and begged her to take me back.
Instead, I’m two states away, with nothing but my own regret to keep me company at night.
I ghosted her, breaking her heart and mine. She has every right to hate me, but that doesn’t stop me from loving her.
It’s not going to stop me from trying to win her back either.
Ready or not, Luna, I’m coming for you.
I fucked up when I broke her heart, but I’ve got less than eighty days left on this contract, and when I get home…
Her ass is mine.
Chapter Five
Stella
There’s something about the feeling of fresh soil squishing between my fingers that centers me. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember. From baking mud pies to helping my dad tend to his vegetable garden, I just... love it.
Dad says I have green thumbs; that I can make anything grow. During my freshman year of high school, when all of the other girls were asking for Coach purses and Ugg boots, I was begging my parents for a steel utility cart to haul all of my tools to and from the shed.
There’s also something really satisfying about growing something all on your own, about taking a seed and nurturing it into a full-grown plant. It takes patience and dedication, two things I severely lack outside of my seven-by-seven plot.
“You out here, Smalls?”
My head snaps up at the sound of my brother, Orion, calling my name, but I don’t bother answering him. He’ll see me in two more steps.
“Figured as much.”
I stick out my tongue at him and then turn back to the task at hand—pulling weeds. “What’s up?”
“Just wanted to see if you planned on coming tonight.”
“Coming where?”
He waits until I’m looking up at him to reply. “To my house, for a party.”
“Like a dinner party?”
“Nope.” Orion shakes his head, grinning in that stupidly annoying way only older brothers can do. “Like an all-out rager.”
Shock sends me sprawling back onto my butt. “And you’re inviting me?”
I sound redundant, but Orion is the very definition of overprotective.
Thanks to his stifling ass, I’m eighteen and have never been to a real party. Hell, I’ve never even had a boyfriend.
Unless you count—nope! Not going there. He doesn’t get to live rent-free in my brain anymore.
My point is, even though he’s only six years older than I am, my brother is a total mama bear when it comes to me; a totally over-the-top, overbearing, and overprotective mama bear.