Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 109299 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109299 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
When we’re safely away from the tourists downtown, he lifts a hand and slides a thumb down my jaw. “I’m still forgetting all about last night.”
A shiver runs through me. “Me too. Want to forget about it over a picnic dinner?”
His smile is smug, deservedly so. “You like me.”
“Shut up.”
He laughs. “You really like me.”
“You’re just being mean now pointing that out.”
“You really like me so fucking much.”
“Oh my god, just play Beethoven instead,” I say.
He hits the button on the console and blasts something with joyful piano and violins as he drives me home.
That evening, I wash my face and scrub off my sunscreen after working on the farm all afternoon. Then, with my hair pushed back in a lavender—naturally—cotton headband, I settle onto the couch with Banks. As we’re forgetting all about last night thanks to the dinner I ordered which he picked up—a chicken sandwich for him and an artichoke and cheese for me—Haven calls.
I lunge for it. Her tone’s an apology. “There’s a photo of you and Chris going viral.”
“What?” I ask, sitting up straight on the couch. Hudson lifts his snout from where he’s lounging on the floor. “There weren’t photographers in the store.”
But Banks drags a hand down his face, grumbling, “Everyone’s a photographer.”
A minute later, I’m staring at a shot on some random person’s social media of New Chris and his “new woman.” Since the mock turtleneck with the short sleeves means that Haven doesn’t know about my allegedly amazing new skin care routine on my neck, but also that no one knows I’m not my sister. The sleeves hit at my elbow, and they hid all my birds.
Because the caption reads: Little did I know who was in the produce aisle! And he looks at her like she’s the one!
31
RULE NUMBER FOUR
BANKS
A dose of red-hot anger courses through me. “I should have been there,” I mutter, pacing around the cottage.
“Banks,” Ripley says, popping up from the couch. “You couldn’t have stopped it.”
“But I could,” I say, hissing out a sharp breath. “I could have been near you instead of waiting outside.”
“It was just a flower delivery. I wanted to be able to do it,” she tries to reassure me, reaching for my arm with a calm hand.
I shake my head. “But if I were there, I wouldn’t have let that happen.”
“What were you going to do? Take some random person’s phone?” She waggles the phone she’s holding, showing me the shot again of her and Chris hugging. A shot that was clearly taken from a distance. Maybe twenty feet away? Ten? Possibly snapped as someone turned into the aisle and spotted the star and his supposed new love?
“Maybe,” I mutter.
She puts her phone back in her shorts pocket. “Banks, you weren’t going to take someone’s phone.”
“I would have if I’d had to,” I insist, still fuming.
“Are you really going to make a habit of taking random strangers’ things? I feel like maybe that’s illegal,” she says dryly.
“I should have done something. Could have stopped it. Should have stopped it,” I say as I pace away from her toward the sliding glass doors of the deck, stopping at the glass to stare at the night sky and the stars twinkling in it.
Here, I can replay this afternoon. Find the moment when I failed. Then never do that again.
She follows me, sets a hand on my shoulder. “You couldn’t have,” she says, her voice soothing. “It’s no big deal. They didn’t hurt me or him or anyone. It’s fine. It’s only a picture. I wasn’t scared in the store, and you couldn’t have stopped it.”
But those words grate at me. They remind me of years ago. When I was younger.
When I had a feeling—I just fucking had a feeling what my dad was up to. And I didn’t follow him. I didn’t confront him. I didn’t stop him.
“But I could have,” I say, my voice quieter, filled with regret now. For the past. For the missed opportunities. For justice back then. I close my eyes, dip my face, sigh heavily.
After a few seconds, a hand comes up the back of my neck into my hair. “Banks, is this about today? Or something else?”
It’s about…everything.
I look up, meet her caring gaze. As she strokes my hair, I weigh the decision to tell her. I’m not an impulsive guy with my mouth. I’m not even impulsive with my actions.
For work, I react, I anticipate. I think. And it’s the same in my personal life too. I haven’t even told my past girlfriends about the way my family splintered. It’s personal, and it’s embarrassing.
But when Ripley looks at me with kind eyes and a big heart, when she senses what I need, maybe even before I realize it, I want to tell her. I don’t want to keep carrying this by myself.