Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 59120 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59120 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 296(@200wpm)___ 236(@250wpm)___ 197(@300wpm)
Not bothered at all, I walk over and fling the door open.
I pause, eyes wide and mouth agape as I take in the scene before me.
My mom is coming out of Chief’s bathroom. She’s in a towel, hair wet, skin flushed.
I blink, then shriek. “Mom!”
She freezes, towel clutched at her chest. I swear to God, she even makes a little squeaking sound.
Before I can say another word, Chief follows her out, shirtless, pulling up his sweats. His tattooed arm glistens with water.
“Oh my GOD,” I yell. I slap my hands over my face. “Mom, this is not the kind of errands I thought you were going to run...”
My mom’s voice stammers as she tries to come up with a response. “We were just—”
“Nope,” I cry. “Don’t even finish that sentence. I’m leaving. I am actually leaving the state. I am never coming back. You will need to sign my adoption papers.”
I drop my hands and see Chief is grinning. He’s grinning, the absolute dick. “Mischief, it’s not what it looks like.”
“It looks like you slept with my mom!”
His grin gets bigger. “Then it is what it looks like.”
“God dammit. No.”
“I’m sorry, honey,” Mom tries one more time. “I wasn’t planning on it. I came here to visit and...”
“Oh, you don’t need to finish that. I know exactly what happened after.”
Chief chuckles.
“This is not funny,” I say, eyes swinging to him. “You two are all dark, gloomy lovers that ended years ago. We can’t be doing this now.”
“We’re not getting any younger,” Chief points out. “Might as well do what makes us happy.”
“God. I can’t. I’m leaving so I can wash my eyes.”
I turn and rush out to their laughter.
Kill me. Kill me now.
12
I wake up in a cold sweat, my entire body clammy. It’s the dream again. The same one. Jeremy. Always Jeremy. I hate him for what he did. He took his own pain away, but not before he upended my life first. A warm hand lands on my side, and Travis rolls in close, his breath warm on my cheek.
“You okay?” His voice is husky and sleepy, and it’s a comfort I didn’t know I needed.
“I’ll be fine,” I whisper. “It’s just a dream I have over and over again. Sometimes, it doesn’t happen often, and other times it feels like it never goes away.”
He doesn’t say anything at first, just watches me, his face just visible under the moonlight coming through the crack in the curtain. He’s warm beside me, solid and safe, but my skin still feels sticky. Finally, he lifts my hand and runs his thumb over the pulse at my wrist, like he can still feel the echo of it racing.
“Want to tell me what it’s about?”
“Are you sure you want the details?”
“Hit me,” he says. No hesitation.
“It’s weird, because it isn’t something I saw, but I just keep seeing him ending his life. Well, what I imagined that would look like.” My mouth goes dry. “It’s always the same, he just looks at me, dead in the eye and tells me it’s all my fault and then shoots himself. It’s horrible, I...”
My voice cuts off, scratchy and trembling.
“Fuck, I’m sorry, baby. I didn’t know it was affecting you like that.”
I swallow. “I have gotten help, and I understand why they’re happening, but it doesn’t seem to stop it. When I get stressed, or things are hard, they come back.”
“You’re stressed because of me,” he says, not a question but a statement.
“No,” I whisper. “Trav, I would do this with you all over again.”
“I get that, and I fucking love you for it, but seeing me withdraw wasn’t easy. I know it wasn’t.”
He’s right.
“You want me to take you somewhere today? Maybe clear your mind.”
“Nah,” I say. “But I would like to just lay here and listen to you sing dumb country songs to make me feel better...”
“You know I don’t do country, Mischief.”
“For me?”
He grins, the flash of his teeth making me all warm and fuzzy inside. “Yeah. Fuck. For you, I’d do anything.”
He starts singing a song I haven’t heard before, but I love it all the same. The way his voice dips and lowers, even when he’s not trying, he sounds incredible. After a minute I shuffle closer, tangle a leg around his, and press my face into the side of his neck. The nightmares can’t possibly stay too long when I am here, like this, with him.
We drift back to sleep and wake in the morning, tangled in each other, sunlight slicing stripes across the sheets. Travis moves first, pressing his lips to mine before getting up and pulling on jeans, then heading to the kitchen to start coffee. I peel myself out of bed, get changed, and go downstairs where Travis tells me we’re out of eggs.
“Ohh,” I pout. “I am desperate for pancakes.”