Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 80102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80102 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 401(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
When we do finally get out, it’s because the water starts to run cold, not because we’re done with each other.
We manage to dress quickly and get on the road once we’re not touching and groping.
Since Whit started staying over more, we’ve gone to dinner a couple of times at the same restaurant we had our first … friend date.
While eating there, we haven’t shied away from affection like I promised. I haven’t felt the need to. It’s not a hardship showing Whit affection. Not when it makes him smile at me the way he does when he’s truly happy about something.
Arriving at the Maple Festival, though, it’s different because it’s somewhere new and this definitely feels like a couply thing to do.
For all intents and purposes, we are a couple. I may not have figured out where my sexuality lies among all this, but it’s pretty clear I have strong feelings for Whit.
I like making him happy.
I really like making him come.
I want Whit to be my boyfriend.
I pull him around to everything the festival has to offer, holding his hand, and it’s both somehow intoxicating and scary. Because what if I mess this up? It hasn’t happened yet, but I’ve been waiting for the freak-out or the air to become stifling between us.
After we stuff our faces with pancakes and waffles, we walk the festival grounds. There’s a tent and a mainstage with music, and there’s a carnival that’s mainly for kids, but unsurprisingly, Whit wants to play.
He is basically a big child, so …
He wins me a small stuffed toy on a shooting game, and I promise to cherish it forever before promptly giving it to a child who’s crying because they didn’t win.
Whit doesn’t care. In fact, I think it makes him like me more. As we walk to the next thing to do, he leans in. “You do have a heart.”
“Of course I have a heart. I’m a regular optimistic charity giver who’s not selfish at all.”
Whit grins. “That’s truer than you want people to believe.”
No, I still know I’m a selfish bastard. “Kids are my kryptonite.”
“Oh, good. I shall use my nephew as leverage to get what I want from you.”
I pause and turn to him. “Nephew?”
Whit’s face falls. “Oh, shit. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone yet. Not until the wedding.”
Finally—finally—he mentions the wedding. I’ve been waiting for it.
“Wedding?” I play dumb.
“Uh, yeah. Campbell’s wedding is in a week, and Christie’s pregnant, but, like, no one knows except me and our parents, and … Can you not tell anyone? Like your cousin or—”
“I won’t tell Sommer on one condition.”
“Anything.”
“Are you going to ask me to your brother’s wedding?”
He stalls. “You want to go to my brother’s wedding? I figured … I dunno. It’s a family event, and you’d be my date, and that’s a big step. It’s huge. That’s like—”
“Like what? Like we’re boyfriends?” I step closer to him. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but do you really think I’d come to a place like this with someone who wasn’t my boyfriend?”
“I … uh … I … umm no?”
“Exactly. By the way, my cousin told me about the wedding weeks ago.” I mockingly tsk him. “Playing hard to get is not a good look on you.”
“But it worked, didn’t it?” he calls after me as I walk off.
I guess it did.
Whit catches up and cuts me off. “You really want to come to the wedding as my date? I figured meeting every single person important in my life might be a bit much too soon. We haven’t even had sex yet.”
“Uh, we’ve had plenty of sex.”
“Not, like, you know …” Whit gestures as if to say fill in the blank.
“I have a question for you. Say we stop seeing each other.”
Whit’s mouth drops open, but I hold up my hand.
“Hypothetically, we end. Then someday in the future, I happen to meet another guy I like. I don’t see it happening, but then again, I never saw you coming, either. That’s not my point. Do you really think, after everything we’ve done in bed together, I could say to him, ‘Nope. I’ve never had sex with another man’?”
Whit thinks about that longer than I thought he’d need. “I guess not.”
“I like what we’ve been doing, and I want to keep going. And I want to go to your brother’s wedding.”
“You’ll get a lot of invasive and personal questions. You’re my first boyfriend.”
“What a coincidence. You’re my first boyfriend too.” I nudge him. “Besides, I’ve already met your parents and your brother. Who else would there be?”
“Farmhands who have worked for Dad for years and are practically uncles, their wives, their kids who are like honorary cousins. We may not have a lot of extended family, but our farm and everyone who works on it is our found family.”