Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 117201 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 586(@200wpm)___ 469(@250wpm)___ 391(@300wpm)
“Okay. Yeah.” Burgess slowly started to nod. “This is the kind of advice I came for.”
“Glad I could help. Godspeed.”
Burgess hung up, put the phone back in the pocket of his coat and crossed the street toward the park, relieved to know what not to do. It wasn’t a plan, necessarily. Still, it was more than he’d had ten minutes ago. But when he saw Tallulah coming up the sidewalk in an open trench coat that blew out behind her to reveal a short skirt and boots that went all the way to her knees, everything he’d just been told drained straight out of his head.
Un-fucking-real.
She saw him and a glow spread across her face, her hand lifting in a fluttery wave, turning heads as she walked. Was he actually trying to make something serious happen between him and this woman? On the wild chance he could have some kind of relationship with Tallulah, how long until his cantankerous nature wore thin and she got sick of him, like his ex-wife had? Was there even any point in trying?
Tallulah did a little skip as she reached him, and his heart followed suit.
Yeah.
Yeah, she was worth trying for.
“Congratulations on your good news.”
“Thank you.”
They agreed tacitly to turn and walk beneath the wrought iron arches into the park—and Burgess immediately did a double take. He’d expected the park to be empty of anyone but children and parents at this time of day, but there was a whole gathering of what looked to be young professionals milling around on the grass, holding cups of lemonade in their hands.
“Must be a company picnic or something,” he remarked.
“Yes,” Tallulah murmured back, vacillating briefly on the stone path. “Or something.”
He studied her out of curiosity, but whatever had her hesitating seemed to have taken care of itself. “What made you want to come to this park?”
“Um.” She rolled her lips inward. “The water, of course.”
“Lead the way.”
They continued down the pathway until they reached the edge of the pond, Burgess watching as Tallulah hunkered down to observe the brief shoreline, her gaze sweeping the rock, grass, and dirt landscape in one fell swoop and warming with fondness. “Isn’t she pretty?”
“I’m guessing you see a lot more than I do when you look at a pond.”
“My heart belongs to the ocean, but I do love knowing there is a structured ecosystem on the shores of a pond that isn’t always visible to the human eye.” She dragged a finger through the still surface of the water. “You have your producers, like algae. Consumers, such as fish, insects, occasionally crustaceans. And your decomposers, who are basically like nature’s Roomba, just cleaning up all the waste. Light and heat act as the engine for everything. It’s all running like clockwork, even if we can’t see it.”
“It’s like a team. Everyone has a job to do?”
“Exactly.”
The need to know more about what she loved was too pressing to deny, even though he had to battle through the imposter syndrome that came from being out with a girl this compelling and gorgeous. “Are you enjoying the graduate program so far?”
She made a wishy-washy sound. “Yes and no. I love learning and the information we’re being taught is necessary and valuable. For instance, today we learned about coastal law and policy. But going from exciting internships on four major research studies to . . . a classroom . . .”
“You like being in the field more.”
She wiped away a fake tear. “So much more.”
Burgess chuckled. “You, uh . . . never said what made you choose marine biology.”
When she stood up again, a gust of air carried across the water and sent her hair flying, so he angled his body to block the wind, grunting to himself when the dark strands settled back down around her shoulders. He assumed she wouldn’t notice, but she blinked at him, her eyes tracked upward from his chest to his face. “Did you just block the wind?”
He jerked a shoulder. “I’m a defenseman.”
“Uh-huh.” She continued to regard him thoughtfully with those incredible lips pressed together. “I grew up in a noisy house. I think that’s why marine biology appealed to me.”
Thank God they were off the topic of him defending her against the elements. Could he be any more obvious that he was crazy about her? “I don’t really see how one corresponds to the other.”
Tallulah looked out over the surface of the pond. “My parents love each other, but their mode of communication is bickering at the top of their lungs. My sister was always playing loud music. Like, I developed a spot-on impression of DJ Khaled, because he was just constantly dropping intros in our home. The house was just loud. So freaking loud.
“But in fourth grade, I took a field trip to the zoo. I wandered off from the rest of the class and ended up in the winter animal section of the park. There was one of those underground walkways that allowed me to see underwater as the polar bears swam.” She gestured with her hands, as if trying to portray the shape of the structure. “On the other side were the penguins, diving in and zooming by like little torpedoes. And it was so quiet. It was like that comfortable muffled sound when you go underwater in the bath, you know? Just a glacial hush. I always associated the cold with quiet after that. I wanted to be in the cold quiet.”