Total pages in book: 260
Estimated words: 245483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1227(@200wpm)___ 982(@250wpm)___ 818(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 245483 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1227(@200wpm)___ 982(@250wpm)___ 818(@300wpm)
Hearing that nickname in his voice, drunk and scratchy and tired, makes me go weak in the knees.
My response is gentle and somehow comes out even. “You should probably go to bed, then.” Standing a safe three feet away from him, I cross my arms over my chest to keep my hands where they are. His gaze drops, making note of it. A sad smile on his face is all I’m given.
I swallow thickly and head up the stairs to the second floor, past him, my arm brushing against his. And when we touch, my God, that small touch. My eyes close and I breathe in deep, quickening my pace when I hear the stairs creaking behind me with his weight.
A narrow hall leads to a bedroom in the back. Cill appears beside me with his duffle bag slung over one shoulder. He looks at the room. The bed. The window. It’s not much, but enough for a guest to be comfortable.
“You want me to go somewhere else?” he asks again.
“No,” I say and my answer is firm even if it is just a whisper between us. I don’t need any time to think about it. It surprises me how much I mean it. I don’t want him to go anywhere else.
“Stay here,” I tell him and back up when he takes a half step forward. “You’re drunk tonight,” I explain as his arm drops to his side. “Tomorrow.” I say the word like it’s a promise.
With a nod and a hint of that asymmetric smile, he repeats, “Tomorrow.”
“Good night, Cill.”
“Good night, Hellcat.”
I almost give in. I almost recklessly go to him. Even with every logical thought that’s guarding my heart, part of me wants to feel his lips on mine again more than the rest of me wants to confess my sins and tell him what happened.
But in the end, I pull the door closed.
The act pulls on strings I’d rather stay still. I only hold it together then and there to tell Lydia she can go home if she wants. She only hesitates a moment.
My hands tingle with anticipation as I climb the stairs, my heart thumping with every step.
Before going to my room, I check on Cill’s but the door is closed and I don’t have it in me to open it.
My own bed feels empty in a way it never has before.
My body craves to be wrapped around Cill, but my fingers tangle in my hair instead. There’s so much to tell him and each line runs wild in my mind. There’s so much I already should have told him.
Sleep evades me. The thought of him down the hall, alone under the covers, is too much. It keeps me awake.
I toss and turn, the sheets uncomfortably tight and all wrong. Every time I glance at the clock, it’s only been ten minutes and yet hours tick by. And then another. All the while I stare at my bedroom door.
Should I go to him? I don’t even know if Cill would want that. Even if he did right now, he may not after we talk.
Time changes everything.
Tears form at the corners of my eyes and I brush them away, struggling to hold on to my sanity. It’s difficult not to dwell on the negatives, the thoughts that keep me wide awake. Instead, I think about what used to be. How at one point, I thought all we had left was our happily ever after.
With the memories playing back like a movie, sleep comes and goes in short spurts.
Dreams tempt me and they show me how it once was when we first got together.
* * *
Morning comes all too soon with a stubborn alarm and tired, reddened eyes.
“Fuck,” I mutter as I smack the clock, hating that I didn’t turn it off last night. Six a.m. is far too early and puts me at only three hours of restless sleep at most.
Still, I don’t bother to stay under the sheets.
As soon as I remember—Cill’s here—I’m out of the bed, my bare feet on the cold wooden floor. It’s not far to his room, but when I get there the door is wide open. I know what that means before I step through the threshold.
My palms are clammy as I steady my breathing.
He’s not there.
With a quick check in the bathroom only to find nothing, I head downstairs. I rush down, taking the stairs two at a time. The house is quiet around me. When I don’t see him, I call out his name and it echoes in the empty house.
He’s not here either. I circle the living room to look for signs of him. There are none. He didn’t sit on the couch, or pull the throw blanket over his legs.
Swallowing thickly, I do everything I can to shake off the uncertainty.