Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 96312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96312 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 385(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
My heart thundered, and my stomach clenched. I was almost afraid to ask. “Have to be…?”
His jaw ticked. “Never mind. I know you won’t do it. And even if you did, you’d spend the money on the store.”
He was right about both. I couldn’t afford to have my friends and neighbors think I’d lost my heart to an outsider. That I’d once again allowed someone to love me and leave me. And even if I had the guts to accept what he was offering, the store had crushing debt that would take the money before it even hit my account.
Adrian pulled away, sat up, and put his feet on the ground until all I could see was the bare skin of his back in the shadows. “Maybe you should go, Maddox. You’re due at the store in a couple hours anyway.”
I wanted to reach for him. Put my hand firmly between his shoulder blades and feel the warm strength of him against my palm. But I didn’t dare. The last time I’d reached for someone when I was vulnerable…
“After the accident,” I started, the words scraping my throat raw. “When Maya was barely eating and the life insurance paperwork felt impossible and every breath had been a struggle…”
Adrian turned to look at me over his shoulder. “Go on.”
I sucked in a breath. Fuck, this was hard. “I was dating someone. Guy named Michael. It was serious. At least, I thought it was. But then…”
Adrian turned back around to face me. I could tell by the tension in his body language he was already upset by what I was going to say.
“He… it was too much. My responsibilities. He hadn’t signed up to be burdened with any of that.” I shrugged. “So he left.”
“How long after the accident?”
I met his eyes. They were dark like cut glass under water. Deceptively tempting.
I waved it off. “Does it matter?”
His voice was sharper than the cut glass. “How long after the accident, Maddie?”
My skin prickled with awareness, with the overwhelming feeling that someone cared, that he wanted to look out for me and protect me. That he would raze the earth to punish someone for causing me an injustice.
“Two weeks,” I said, feeling impossibly, unexpectedly brittle.
Before he could offer me any comfort, before he could make it good or even attempt to, I moved back and climbed out of the bed, trying to stay calm while I collected and yanked on my clothes. “So you can see why I have to go, right?”
My voice was abnormally high and strange, like I was speaking through a cardboard tube.
Every molecule of my awareness was laser-targeted on his reaction, but I refused to let him see it.
Adrian was quiet for a long moment, and when he finally spoke, his voice was carefully controlled. “I do see. Self-preservation. Someone you trusted saw you as a burden rather than giving you support and love during the hardest fucking moments of your life. You don’t want to risk that happening again.” A pause. “Doesn’t mean it doesn’t suck ass to be on the receiving end of it.”
The honesty in his voice—hurt but not accusatory—somehow made it worse.
I nodded at the floor, the numbness overtaking me a blessed relief. “Right. Good. Okay.”
After shoving my phone into my pocket, I strode out of the room in search of his rental keys. My hands shook as I grabbed them and reached for the door.
There were no footsteps behind me.
Damn.
My eyes stung, probably in anticipation of the frigid cold outside.
Motherfucker.
I yanked the door open and was just about to break free of the hold he had over me when his voice called out from the bedroom.
“Just one thing, Sullivan. Remember that bet about our fire-building video getting a thousand thirsty comments? Well, the thing is… I won.”
I closed my eyes, hand still on the door handle. Relief and disappointment warred in my chest—relief that this wasn’t over, that I’d get to see him again. But disappointment, too, because some pathetic part of me had wanted him to fight harder to make me stay.
Walk away, idiot. Get in the car and drive before you do something stupid like turn around and beg him to let you crawl back into his bed and into his body.
His voice rang out again as his sleep-rumpled self appeared in the bedroom doorway. For a moment, hurt flashed across his features before his expression smoothed into something more controlled.
He lazily leaned against the jamb in his underwear. “Which means you owe me a date.” He met my eyes, and molten lava slithered hotly through my veins. “A romantic one. An authentic one.”
#NightmareToDream #ThousandThirstyComments #PayUpSullivan #Stay
15
#SISTERLYADVICE
ADRIAN
I stood outside Sullivan Hardware, debating whether to go in. The smart thing would’ve been to text Maddox to leave my keys in the rental so I could avoid another awkward encounter where I’d inevitably say something stupid about feelings or staying or any of the hundred other things Maddox clearly didn’t want to hear.