Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 82747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82747 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
She huffs a humorless laugh, but I have to continue in the name of full disclosure and all that.
"What I didn't consider was our age difference. Now that I think about it, Corbin probably said that to me to get me out of the way."
"He had a girlfriend," she mutters, rejecting the idea.
I point to her breasts because, honestly, they explain everything. "Teen boys are idiots, but nonetheless, I let him get in my head, and I figured you hated me. I think after you didn't speak to me after that, I figured you hated me. I've avoided you ever since until that night at the bar."
"This is…" she pauses, blinking at me as if I'm some sort of anomaly. "Do you have any idea how different things could've been?"
I pull in a slow breath. "I'm well aware of the time we've lost because I was out of line."
"You have to let that shit go. You're not that much older than me."
"The age difference doesn't matter now, but it did back then. Your dad would have beat my ass."
"My dad wasn't present enough to care," she mutters, and I can feel years of pain and abandonment in her words. "I don't want to live in the past."
"I don't want to either."
A brief silence settles between us as we watch the other's face, and I feel content to just be sharing the same space with her, but I'm here to have the hard conversations. What happened in high school doesn't matter any longer, no matter how much it shaped who I am today.
"Nothing has changed for me, Riley," I confess. "I want you more now than I did back then."
"Because I have great tits," she blurts with a scoff.
"I find you utterly irresistible, but I know there's so much more to you than your luscious body."
"My cooking," she adds.
"More than that."
"I don't know what to do with all this information," she whispers. She walks toward the sofa and takes a seat as if she's been holding up the weight of the world on her shoulders and she just can't manage the strain any longer.
"It's simple. Tell me how you feel."
I expect a smile, but what I get is her scrunching up her nose and looking at me like I have a second head growing out of my neck.
Chapter 37
Riley
He looks like a beaten puppy as he rounds the end of the sofa and takes a seat right beside me, so close that our knees are touching.
"I have a million things running through my head with what that look on your face could mean, but instead of jumping to conclusions, I'm just going to sit here and let you explain it to me." He pulls in a deep breath. "And when you do, explain it like a three-year-old. I don't want any crossed lines or chance for misinterpretation."
"You've given me a lot to think about."
"Maybe take a chance and don't overanalyze anything. Just tell me how you feel," he urges.
"I feel exhausted with not knowing what this is between us."
I hold up a hand to silence him when he opens his mouth to speak.
"If we're laying it all out there, then let me speak."
I release a long, slow breath. Honesty is great. Telling the truth is great, but sometimes, in doing so, you discover things you don't want to know, things that prevent you from pretending everything is fine when it really isn't, but I've lost too much sleep. If things don't work out between the two of us, then I'd like to know that now so I can start the process of moving forward.
He has told me he finds me attractive, and that's wonderful, but that doesn't mean he wants me forever or even wants to attempt to build a life with me.
"I pined for you the rest of that summer. I just knew when the school year started, I was going to be yours. I tried to catch you at the park. I can't count the number of times I drove past your house, hoping to catch you outside. I didn't feel assaulted. When school started back up and you couldn't even look in my direction, I felt like I'd been pranked. I felt like the punchline of a joke between you and your friends."
I pause, needing a moment because my voice is growing weak with emotion.
"I had written your name a million times in my notebooks and drawn big red hearts around it."
My cheeks heat with the girly confession.
"I convinced myself that even if you came to me and wanted a secret relationship because you were embarrassed about my size, I liked you enough that I would've been okay with it."
"There's nothing okay about that," he mutters.
"I know that now, but it took years of therapy to get there."
"You had to go to therapy?"