Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97199 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97199 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
I’d ask why, but I’m using my sixty minutes to plead my case, not to interrogate her.
“When I did hook up with a woman, it was usually at her place.” I close my eyes briefly. “Sometimes a hotel, or occasionally the apartment in Brooklyn.”
“Never in Tribeca?” she asks as she starts walking again.
I do, too, matching the stride of each of my steps to hers. “No. I’ve never taken a woman there.”
“You’re taking me there now.”
I glance at her to find her eyes set on me. “I want you to see it. I want to see you in my home.”
The corners of her lips curve up, but that stops before a smile appears. “You were fearful of letting a woman into your life, weren’t you?”
“I never thought I’d want to.”
“That’s changed?” Her brows lift.
“You changed it, Opal.” I take a breath. “As soon as you arrived at my apartment in Brooklyn, I felt this need to tell you I didn’t live there anymore, but I didn’t want to lose you. I wanted you to stay and eat pizza with me and…”
“Make love,” she whispers, but I still hear it over the rush of traffic and the voices of the people passing us by.
“Yes.” I nod faintly. “It was wrong. I was wrong. Then you said you weren’t looking for anything serious.”
“So, you invited me back there. I get it.”
“For the record, I agreed to the casual thing so I could be with you whenever you’d let me.” I chuckle. “I craved you, Opal. I crave you. I’d sit next to you for hours just watching you read a book.”
She laughs. “That would be boring.”
I stop her with a light touch to her elbow. “It would be a gift to me. Every single second I can look at your face, or listen to you breathe, or hear you laugh is a goddamn gift.”
She stares at my face. “You mean that, don’t you?”
“I do,” I admit. “You’re the most remarkable person who ever graced this earth. I’m so fucking lucky I met you.”
Her bottom lip trembles. “William, I…”
“William!” A loud male voice breaks through the moment and the sounds of Manhattan. “Jesus, man. I’ve been trying to get ahold of you.”
I know exactly who just called out to me. I shake my head slightly. “He speaks the truth. As soon as he’s close enough, he’ll grab hold of me. This guy is a hugger.”
Opal laughs.
I flash her a smile just as I feel a hand tapping my shoulder. I turn abruptly to greet the man I knew was on the approach. “Tony! It’s good to see you.”
Normally, that would be the truth, but I’m running out of time with Opal. The clock is ticking away on those precious sixty minutes she gave me.
He flings his arms around me to give me a full-on hug. “I’ve been meaning to call you.”
I step back and pat his chest. “I’m here now. How’s Ramona?”
“Good doctors, great care, prayer,” he recites the three things he’s been leaning on since his wife was hospitalized. “She’s coming home in a few days.”
Opal steps into my view, so I gesture toward her. “Tony Gallanto, this is Opal Waverly.”
Tony nods at me as he taps his finger to his bottom lip as though he knows he needs to keep a secret. Tony is a former client, so he knows how closely I guard the details of what I do for a living. “Hey, Opal. It’s good to meet you.”
Opal smiles at him. “You too. I overheard something about someone named Ramona.”
“My wife.” Tony proudly pushes his shoulders back. “Greatest woman in this city. She took a tumble on her bike a couple of weeks back. Broke her hip in two places.”
“Oh no.” Opal’s hand leaps to her mouth. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
He adjusts the collar of the button-down shirt he’s wearing. “She’s good. She’ll be good. Ramona is a fighter. She’s tough. She has to be to put up with me, right, William?”
I pat his cheek. “You’re getting her through this, Tony.”
“With your help,” he reminds me. “You’re the one who talked to Dr. Northrup.
He only agreed to do the surgery because he’s a friend of yours.”
I almost wince at the emphasis he puts on the word friend. I didn’t outright tell Tony that the best orthopedic surgeon in the state was a former client, but it doesn’t take a genius to connect those dots.
Tony doesn’t have a lot of friends in this city, so when he reached out after Ramona’s accident, I recommended Larry Northrup. Tony tried to get the details worked out, but it took a call from me to the good doctor to get all of the pieces to fall into place.
Opal studies my face. “That was kind of you.”
“This is the kindest guy you’ll ever meet.” Tony slaps the center of my back. “He’ll go out of his way to make your life better. He did that for me. I can never repay him.”