Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 86073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86073 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Atticus is owed that.
I swallow, hating how uncertain I feel. But the words slip out anyway.
“Fine,” I say. “But that’s it. Nothing more. You show up. You apologize to him. And then you leave. Understood?”
“I understand,” he says quietly. “Thank you. I’ll be there tomorrow night around seven.”
“Six,” I say. “Atticus goes to bed at seven thirty.”
“Sure. I’ll be there at six.”
I hang up, toss the phone in the passenger seat, and sink back against my seat, exhausted.
Natalie outside the coffee shop. Hunter leaning out his window, talking to her. Nick on his way back into my life, if only for a moment.
I thought moving home would simplify things.
But all I’ve done is get tangled up in more of a mess than I ever imagined.
53
Hunter
I’ve been up to my neck in small projects all day—tinkering, repairing, organizing shit that doesn’t actually need organizing. The kind of work that keeps my hands busy but my mind just as restless. Doesn’t help that I ran into Natalie this morning. It seemed to set the tone for a day that was already well on its way to being shitty.
The music’s blaring loud enough to piss off the dead, but it still doesn’t drown out my thoughts of Wren and that goddamned notebook.
It’s been days since I’ve seen her. Days since she texted me, asking if I was free that night. I didn’t answer. Not because I didn’t want to—but because I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to brush her off, and I didn’t want to pick a fight. But pretending it wasn’t a big deal? That’d be a lie.
And lying isn’t in my nature.
I keep replaying my conversation with Natalie at the coffee shop. The way she said Wren’s writing some book about me. About us. She made it sound like the whole thing’s been one long exercise in research. Like I’m just the broody farmer prototype she needed to round out her plot.
And then there’s Nick. Her ex, still circling like a vulture, still texting her.
Natalie was quick to remind me of that too.
I remind myself—this is Natalie we’re talking about. Desperate Natalie. The same woman who, after we broke up, used to call me six, seven times a day. When I stopped answering, she faked a damn car accident to get my attention. Claimed she hit a deer. I didn’t buy it, but I still called her back because I thought she was hurt, and it was the right thing to do.
She used to be beautiful. Back in the day, she had that queen bee glow, always the prettiest girl in the room. Always got what she wanted. She thought she’d have me in the bag. When I proved to be a challenge, when I didn’t fall into line, when I ended things . . . it wasn’t just heartbreak. It was humiliation.
She’s still attractive, sure—but her beauty is only skin deep. Peel it back and it’s nothing but insecurity, gossip, and fake smiles. Not someone I’d ever build a life with. Not someone I could trust. Her best days are long behind her, leaving a bitter, jealous woman in her place.
I should take everything Natalie said with a grain of salt.
But that notebook? That’s harder to shake. It wasn’t gossip or hearsay. It was real. In her handwriting. Our nights, our words, our private moments . . . scribbled down alongside chapter outlines and plot beats.
I try to shove it down, keep my head focused on the task in front of me, but by late afternoon I’m spent. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally.
I head home, crack a beer, and step out onto the deck on the back side of the lodge—the side that faces away from the little white farmhouse down the road. Out here, it’s just open sky and quiet.
I drop into a chair, the wood creaking under my weight, and stare out at the horizon until the sun starts to dip low. I initially came out here to think, but now that I’m out here, thinking’s the last thing I feel like doing. I’ve done enough of that for the day.
The beer in my hand remains cracked and untouched.
My grandfather always used to say too much thinking and not enough doing was the worst way to solve a problem, so I dump the beer over the railing of the deck, head inside, and grab that notebook.
54
Wren
I’ve been sitting at my desk for over an hour and all I have to show for it are three sentences—not even good ones.
I backspace the last line and sigh, dragging the curtains shut to block the view of the lodge on the hill. It helps a little—not seeing his house—but only barely. The imprint of it is still there, in my mind, every time I close my eyes. Knowing he’s so close yet so far away at the same time has been eating me alive.