Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 96970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
I thought back to the moment Alex picked up the call.
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see…
What the actual fuck?
Ignore me. I get poetic when I drink.
My head spun as memories came flooding in. Of DrunkenPoet saying he was expected to take over the family farm. Farm.
But wasn’t a vineyard essentially a farm? And had he even been the one to call it a farm, or had I misunderstood?
I thought back through almost a year of messages between me and DrunkenPoet, a year of getting to know someone who I was… now sleeping with? How was that possible? It wasn’t. It just fucking wasn’t.
I opened the forum where we’d originally met and had all of our conversations. They were still there, but his messages showed as sent from [Deleted User].
It took me hours to go through them all, looking for proof that Alex Marian and DrunkenPoet couldn’t possibly be the same person.
Instead, I heard Alex’s voice in every single one of them. The same sweet, teasing tone, the sometimes naive take on things like relationships and sex. The love of pizza and dislike of grapefruit.
I also saw my messages encouraging him to leave his family and pursue his own dreams.
Which he’d done.
He’d moved to Montana three years ago to open Timber. Three years ago.
I couldn’t even wrap my head around this. How was it possible?
I had to tell him. What would his reaction be?
Since I was here in Spokane for an important conference, I had to force myself to try and get some sleep. But when I finally fell asleep, it was to thoughts of what Alex had said about his ex. He’d been a firefighter who’d died.
I fell for him, hard. It’s silly because we didn’t know each other that well, but… we had an amazing connection.
Was it possible that I was Alex’s dead firefighter? And that he’d had real feelings for me even then, the way I had for him?
23
ALEX
IndexEcho: Three weeks, Poet. Three weeks and I’m flying home to you. There will be no more restrictions on what we can share. Your address is the first thing I’m asking for.
DrunkenPoet: I’m making a list of all the things I want to show you. Fair warning: it’s getting long.
IndexEcho: I’ve got time. We’ve got time.
_____________________
The next morning at breakfast, I laid into Aunt Tilly. “You think you’re hilarious, but you’re not. And you could have seriously screwed up my professional reputation,” I snapped as I sat down.
Papa’s eyes grew large from where he sat next to her. “Woah, hold on. What’s happening?”
I pointed at Tilly. “Manage your attack dog. She stole my phone, downloaded a hookup app, and then sent a dick pic from me to a professional colleague.”
So what if that wasn’t the entire truth? Chief Kincaid was definitely a professional colleague of mine; he just happened to be one whose inner thigh I’d tasted.
“Colleague, my ass,” she said. “The two of you have hate burning so hot, there’s bound to be a conflagration soon enough.”
My cheeks were a conflagration at the knowledge of how right she was. But from the way she was talking, it sounded like she hadn’t had time to scroll my actual text messages. “That’s my business, not yours. Stay out of my damned phone and my business.”
I gathered my things and went to sit at another table. Unfortunately, this one had my cousin Jett at it. I’d been avoiding him all weekend.
“Well, well,” he began. “If it isn’t my harasser. Tell me, did you get to enjoy my castoffs? That was a long time ago; I’m surprised the guy remembered. Who can remember one random hookup from three years ago? Christ.”
I put my middle finger in his face. “You blowing him off caused me a lot of grief. Stop doing rude shit if you’re going to walk around with my face and last name.”
He laughed and sat back, resting his coffee cup on his chest. “Not my fault we have the same biological parents.”
Our aunt Simone flicked Jett behind the ear. “Watch it. Alex, I would claim. You, not so much.”
Papa’s sister, Simone, had donated her eggs when my dads had decided to have another child with a gestational carrier. The carrier got pregnant on the first try, which left several embryos leftover, so when my uncles decided to start their family the following year, Dad, Papa, and Simone had donated the embryos to them.
Jett and I shared the same DNA. Aunt Simone’s and my dad’s. We rarely talked about it because it simply wasn’t important, but at times like this, I wished Uncle Mav and Uncle Beau had gotten their own damned genetic material instead of using mine.
It was true what I’d told Judd: Jett didn’t take anything seriously, and he loved sex. He’d practically made a career out of sleeping with as many people as possible, always claiming he was planning on growing his body count until the moment he stepped off this mortal coil.