Total pages in book: 75
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71403 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 286(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
My family seems to be growing by the day lately.
Here in Dreamwood Isle, my family has multiplied to include the whole town. There’s not a single face I come by that isn’t friendly. I think after the way we handled the whole “fiasco that could’ve been”, the locals here see me in a new light, like I earned their respect somehow. I’m not sure how that happened, considering all the heavy lifting was done by social media guru Brooke, Decoy Theo, and Lexi coming forward on live stream, but I’m grateful for it.
Home is where the heart is.
And my heart is with Finn, the man I cuddle up next to when the sky’s dark, standing at the very end of the pier under a wide and sweeping curtain of stars. Others are back here too, awaiting the Saturday night fireworks show, but even with everyone else all around us, it feels like the only two people in the world are me and him.
We can’t seem to peel our eyes off of each other.
“It’s good to have you back,” murmurs Finn happily. “I have to admit, a tiny part of me … feared you’d regain a taste for the West Coast when you went to finish filming.”
I nudge his nose with my own. “Going back there only reminded me exactly why I belong here with you.”
He kisses me right then. Above our heads explode the fireworks—the real ones, as well as the other kind you only feel in your heart. I’m not sure we can tell the difference.
Who knew that the greatest role of my life wouldn’t be on the big screen, but right here, the one I’m living.
Finale - Finn
I take my coffee outside, morning air on my face.
Gulls draw wide, sweeping circles overhead, floating on the warm air currents. The Fair, still asleep, as the water whispers and giggles at its feet, like the whole Hopewell Harbor is still dreaming. There’s a boat out in the water, far away, perhaps a fisherman, or just someone out for a quiet morning on the calmer waves.
“Never was a morning person,” grunts River. Oh, did I mention he’s next to me? “This is your fault.”
I smile and nudge his side. “Look at what you’ve been missing, sleepyhead. Isn’t it nice out here?”
He turns his grumpy eyes onto me, then cracks a smile and throws an arm over my back, pulling me close. “Only ‘cause you’re here, Finny.”
Yeah, that’s a thing that happened.
Finny.
I don’t know where it came from. How it came. I’m not even sure when it came. He snuck it in once, then snuck it in again, and suddenly it’s what he calls me now.
I guess it’s low-key cute.
My life, in many ways, feels the same. I check up with my people at the Fair, tend to my duties, stock, training and new hires, type away on a computer in the office, run my errands around the island. But now, something else lives under the surface of these otherwise mundane day-to-day activities, something electrical and bright.
Something that makes my life feel fresh and new.
Something called a romantic, sometimes overdramatic, but overall adoring man named River Wolfe.
Whose actual last name is Peters, by the way.
I didn’t even have to read up on all his public info out in the open on the internet, which I’m never usually on anyway—despite Brooke insisting that I should start right now and hashtag everything as #RiverIsMyBoyfriend. I’d have a million followers overnight. I could give diet and workout tips. Dance badly. Give deliberately terrible video reviews roasting River in his own movies—lovingly, of course. It would kill, she insists, and River could even do a cameo in some of them.
I bookmarked that idea for now.
Besides, she’s got her hands full with being an official part of River’s actual social media team. She doesn’t need her brother out there making a fool of himself.
At least not yet.
It’s always a good morning when River is in town. But don’t get me wrong: River is an amazing boyfriend even when he has to fly out for work. He checks in whenever he lands. He tells me about his costars, lets me in on secrets I probably shouldn’t know about regarding his film projects, and even sneaks on-set selfies just to make me feel like I’m there. My heart dances all over the place like a schoolboy with a crush, lying on my bed in the bungalow, feet tracing funny shapes in the air as I giggle with my phone clutched, typing away replies. It’s like night and day, the way I feel with River compared to anyone else in the world.
River makes me a better, calmer person. Someone who can embrace the curveballs easier. Who doesn’t need to grip so tightly to every little thing. He makes me trust the ebb and flow of the unpredictable sea of life.