Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 97053 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97053 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
I smile at her. “What am I thinking?” Iris seems to be able to read my mind at times. But really, I want to read hers. What’s she thinking? How was New York for her? I know I’ve said that we should continue to date and we’ll figure out how to get to where we want to go, but since coming back from New York last night, all I can think about is the obstacles.
She reaches for my hand across the table and links her fingers through mine. “I had a really good time in New York. It was so kind of you to arrange it. You don’t need to worry.”
I smile, but I know it’s half-hearted. “It didn’t go quite as I had planned.”
“I know, but that’s life, isn’t it? Sometimes we have a bumper crop of strawberries and sometimes we can’t get them off the plants before they rot. There’s only so much you can control.”
I nod. She’s right. Of course she is. But it doesn’t make it better. “Being with you in New York… it made me see my life there in a different way.”
Iris laughs. “You’ve decided you like farm life? An existence of early mornings and stained fingers, away from brunches and ballet?”
The thought hits me like a bullet. Our worlds are so incredibly different. But worst of all—she doesn’t see me here. With her. She can’t picture it.
The realization sends panic slithering up my spine. Not because she’s wrong. But because maybe she’s right. Maybe I’ve been kidding myself that a solution is just going to land. She’s tied to Star Falls. I’m tied to New York—waiting to take over the Alden family legacy. There’s no middle ground here. We’re not going to both move to Ohio.
“I think we should go to Grizzly’s,” she says.
I lower my voice, wanting to avoid a scandal. “You don’t like the pizza here?”
She smiles at me, but it’s not the full-throated laugh I expect. “I think we should stop not talking about what we’re both thinking. We need to go and eat some wings, play some pool and maybe even dance. I think there’s a band there tonight.”
“A band?” I ask. “I’m not sure I’m a guy who really chases after a band.”
“I’m not suggesting we chase after anyone.” She pushes her seat away from the table. “But I want to get out of here.”
I get it. She doesn’t want to face the inevitable, the cold hard truth—there isn’t any magic formula that will mean we can be together. There just isn’t.
We’re living on borrowed time. We both know it.
But for now I’m holding on for a miracle that will change both our paths.
The music leaks out of Grizzly’s like it can’t be contained, a bubbling-over pot of guitar and a woman’s vocals.
I open the door and Iris turns her head and grins at me, like she’s so pleased we came. The jury’s out for me. I just want to be with Iris and block the rest of the world out. I don’t want to think about tomorrow or this time next year. I don’t want to think about my mother and the hotel. I want everything to just disappear and leave Iris and me. And maybe Grizzly’s wings.
Iris slips her hand into mine and pulls me inside and toward the back of the bar. Anyone would think an entire band was playing from outside, but it’s just a piano player, a guitar player, and a singer on a stool.
“I can’t believe it,” Iris says. “She hasn’t done this song in forever.”
I refocus and realize the singer is the waitress from Grizzly’s. My cell buzzes, and when I check it, the caller ID shows it’s one of the trustees from the trust board. I silence the call and slip it back into my pocket. I don’t want my worlds bleeding together. I just want to be here.
In Star Falls.
With Iris.
The singer has switched gears and she’s singing a ballad. Something about snow-covered hills and getting older. Her voice is incredible. Husky and powerful but so pure. A bit like the mountains that surround us.
Iris stands in front of me and wraps my arms around her, then hooks her arms around me. She feels warm, like she’s a part of the earth or something, and I’m aware of how happy I am right now. In this moment. I wish I could make it last.
I try to commit everything to memory. Every note of the song. Iris’s fingers wrapped around me. The way she smells of wildflowers. And most of all, this feeling of contentment I have deep down inside, which I realize I’ve never experienced until I met Iris.
Then the music stops and Iris turns in my arms.
“Wings?” she asks.
I hold her gaze, wanting to tell her how much she means to me. How much being with her makes me feel like I’m exactly where I should be. But I keep my confession bottled up. There’s no point, is there? There’s no point getting in deeper. Not if there’s no possibility that we can get our happy ending.