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)
“What’s my favorite color?” I questioned.
He huffed. “What?”
“What’s my favorite color?”
“Is this some kind of test of the strength of our relationship? Colors don’t matter, Avery. Those are kiddish facts.”
“Okay. What position did I play in softball?”
No reply.
I shifted. “What vegetable do I hate?”
“Carrots.”
“I love carrots.” I crossed my arms. “What’s my middle name?”
He rolled his eyes. “We aren’t doing this, Avery.”
He didn’t know.
I felt a wave of disappointment wash over me as the realization settled in that I’d been spending the past few years of my life with a stranger.
“What’s something we have in common?” I questioned. “Anything, Wesley, that connects us.”
He tilted his head before his brows lowered in thought. “We both enjoy tacos.”
My heart sank at his reply. “Everyone likes tacos, Wesley. That’s not a reason to fall in love, let alone get married.”
“We made sense on paper,” he argued. “We made sense.”
“No,” I disagreed. “We didn’t. Be honest with me and with yourself. If that job didn’t fall through, would you be here right now with flowers?”
He hesitated a moment, which was more than enough to tell me his answer.
“Goodbye, Wesley,” I said.
He sighed and pitched the bridge of his nose. “Gosh, why are you like this all the time? How can you be so coldhearted?”
“Someone once told me that I’m hard to love,” I sarcastically remarked. “So it probably has something to do with that.” He didn’t say another word, simply because there was nothing left to say. The two of us were done. Truth of the matter was, we were finished long before we made it to our wedding day.
As he climbed into his car and drove off into the night, I stood alone in the parking lot, under the glow of the streetlights, trying to remind myself how to breathe.
After a while, I headed back to Nathan’s house. As I walked inside, I found him loading the dishwasher in the kitchen.
“Hey,” I said, drawing attention to myself.
The moment he heard me approaching, he looked up at me. “Hey. Is everything okay?” He leaned back against the kitchen island and crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” I snickered a little as I shook my head and walked over beside him. I leaned against the island and crossed my arms, just as he had. “That was, um, unexpected.”
“To say the least.”
“But, well, I guess in the end, he and I got closure. So that’s cool.”
“I’m sorry, Avery.”
“Don’t be. It’s for the best. Do you know he didn’t know basic things about me? Not my least favorite vegetable, not my middle name, and not my favorite color. I know those are silly, stupid things that don’t hold meaning, but how did that man know so little about me? The only thing he said we had in common was that we liked tacos.”
“Everyone likes tacos.”
“That’s what I said!” I huffed. “I mean, I can’t put it all on him. I think I stayed with him because he didn’t go deep with me. Which meant I didn’t have to open up completely. He couldn’t shatter my whole heart if I only gave him a few pieces.”
He grimaced and slid his hands into his pockets. “You want to go out back and hit a few balls around on the baseball field?”
“Yeah”—I sighed—“I do.”
“Here,” he said, grabbing a sweatshirt off one of the barstools. “It’s cold out there.”
We walked to the diamond together, and Nathan threw me a few pitches. Some I missed, others I knocked across the field. The chilled air brushed against my cheeks as his sweatshirt draped over my body. The more balls he threw my way, the more my body relaxed from the interaction with Wesley.
After we finished, I walked over to the pitcher’s mound where he was and took a seat. He sat beside me, bending his knees as he rested his crossed arms on them. I was slightly out of breath as I stared up at the star-laced sky. That was always one of my favorite things about Honey Farms. The amount of light pollution was much less than in town.
“I liked kissing you, Ave,” he said, pulling me back to the moment in my office. He didn’t look at me when he said the words. His stare stayed on the sky. Mine stayed on him. “I liked kissing you so damn much, but if it was too much for you, if you’re dealing with all your stuff, I don’t want you to think it had to mean anything. It meant something to me but doesn’t have to mean anything to you. No pressure. Plus, I sort of like what we’re becoming.”
“And what’s that?”
“Friends. We kind of skipped over the friendship thing when we were younger and went straight to love. Don’t get me wrong, I liked that. A lot. I’m just saying it also feels damn good to be your friend, too.”