Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 122219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122219 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 611(@200wpm)___ 489(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
I walked her to the bathroom, and a slight gasp escaped her lips as she looked around the dimly lit room. “Oh my gosh. Your bathroom is the size of my bedroom.” She paused and pressed a hand to her forehead. “Oh my gosh. I don’t have a bedroom anymore!” Her voice cracked as the realization rolled off her tongue. “I lived with Wesley. In his house. Oh my goodness. I’m homeless.”
“You’re not homeless.”
“I am! I don’t have a home. Not having a home means homeless, Nathan. Oh my gosh, I don’t have a home.” She began pacing in my bathroom as the realizations settled in. “What am I going to do?”
“You have a home,” I said once more.
“How so? How do I have a home if I don’t have a home?”
“Well, I have a home. So if I have a home, you have a home. If you need one, I mean.”
Her pacing stopped. She turned to me with widened eyes and tilted her head. Those full lips parted once more, and I prayed her thoughts would be released from her brain. Instead, she shook them away. “You need to leave. I have to get out of this damn dress.”
“Right. Of course.”
I turned to walk away, and she said, “Nathan, wait.”
“Yeah?”
She placed the baseball book on the bath tray I had set up for her, turned her back to me, and moved the loose hair hanging against her neck to the side. “Can you undo my dress? I can’t get out of this thing on my own.”
“Yeah, of course.”
I walked over to her and unlaced her dress from the top. I took my time with it, watching as the gown unraveled and loosened. She held her hands over her chest, keeping the fabric from falling to the floor. Each lace I loosened revealed more and more of her beautiful brown skin. I wanted my fingers to brush against her skin. I wanted to spin her around and hold her in my arms.
But I knew that would never happen for me.
She wasn’t mine to hold anymore. Yet being that close to her, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like to have her and to hold her once more.
I’d lost a lot of things in my life. I’d lost things I thought would make me crumble into a million pieces. I’ve lost things that meant so much to me. But nothing would compare to what losing Avery did to me.
Losing Avery Kingsley would be one of the greatest regrets of my life. If I could turn back time, it would’ve worked out differently. If I could turn back time, I would’ve never played another game of baseball if it meant I had her.
Yet that was the thing about choices. We’d made the best ones we thought possible when we were dealing with the different traumas at hand. Young Nathan was just…scared and so deeply sad from the loss of his father. I didn’t know how to think straight at that moment, let alone have enough space in my fucked-up head to love Avery right.
“I was right,” I said as I kept removing the ribbon from its loops.
“Right about what?”
“You being a beautiful bride.”
She didn’t say another word, and I didn’t blame her. But her body did tremble a little. Her soul did react. I just didn’t know what to make of the reaction. I wished I knew how to play it cool around her, too, and pretend that I didn’t feel the way I’d felt, but I couldn’t help it. She was beautiful, and I needed her to know that.
“Done,” I murmured, letting the ribbon drop to the floor.
“Thank you.”
“Anytime.”
“Hopefully, I won’t need you to unlace me from a wedding dress again.”
One can hope, Avery. One can only hope.
14
AVERY
He left a bottle of wine on the bathtub tray beside the wineglass.
I was taking a bath in Nathan’s gigantic bathtub.
Why was I taking a bath in Nathan’s gigantic bathtub?
I skirted the water with my toes before climbing in. It was the perfect temperature. My body melted into the pool of comfort as the bubbles fizzled from my contact with them. The whole room smelled like I’d stepped into a lavender field, and the heaviness of my heart began to ease somewhat.
Until I turned to my left and saw my wedding gown pooled on the floor.
In a different world, Daddy would’ve already given me away.
My sisters would’ve been standing by my side. Both would’ve cried, but Yara a little more than Willow. Pregnancy hormones had a way of doing that to a girl. Willow would’ve performed the sand ceremony, giving us the symbolism of two words blending into one.
We would’ve exchanged our vows.
Wesley would’ve cried.
I wouldn’t have.
He would’ve said, “I do.”
I would’ve said, “I do,” too.
Our reception would’ve been starting any second now.