Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69018 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 345(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“We’ve both had some trauma. A significant amount, I’d say. But I believe in you, and you believe in me. We respect each other. Even if you can’t be here all the time, and we have to do some of this on the phone, we can make it. I want you, Thorn. Exactly as you are and for who you are. Past, present, future.”
He groans, leaning forward and kissing me. Deeply. He tips my chin up after and looks right into my eyes. “I missed you so badly while I was away. You were all I could think about. I know you don’t see me the way others do—cold, distant, and uncaring. It really helped these past few weeks. I’m starting to see myself differently. I feel slightly defeated now, but I know it’ll only get better. You’re right. It doesn’t all happen at once. And I’m not giving up.” He pauses and then breathes out a whole gust of air that flutters my hair. “There’s one more thing I have to tell you.” He shifts me, lifts up his shirt, and then drags his jeans down until I see the tip of the scarring—red, gnarled, twisted flesh. “This is why I fell that day. Pissgate. My leg gave out. I love fieldwork, but it hurts sometimes. I’ve worked so hard on rehabbing it after… Anyway, this is why I was discharged. Why I finally came home. Because I wasn’t of any use any longer. Not to my team, not to my country, and not to my family. At least, that’s what I thought.
“So I worked doubly as hard, more than double even, to prove I was worth something. Not to them but to myself. I didn’t want to give up fieldwork. I hated the office, and after years of rehab, it wasn’t so painful. Just every now and then. I could mostly walk on it and do the things I wanted to do. I might pay for it at the end of the day, but at least I could feel like I was part of something again. All the work I did, it’s all I ever wanted. I now know how narrow-minded that must seem.”
“You’re summarizing years’ worth of thoughts, anguish, and emotions. It’s not trivial or narrow-minded. I’m sorry I ever called your focus narrow.”
“It was, though. Far narrower than it should have been. I want this second chance with my family. I want it with you. They and us. Together. I do have friends that were in service that are home now. Old teammates. I think I’d like to look them up.”
I stroke his lips with my thumb. “That would be amazing.”
“I was terrified of being thrust outside my comfort zone. I thought I was dealing, but I wasn’t. To think Pissgate was what really started all this.”
“I’ll never forget the golden puddle.”
He breaks into a grin, and finally, those doubts and storm clouds get chased away. “Thank you for being here and hearing me out. Thank you for supporting me through this. I don’t even have words for how much you mean to me. I had them all planned out, everything I wanted to say. How I wanted to tell you that I want a future, I want to fall in love, I want to be a family. How the world was never enough for me because I didn’t have you, but now I know if I had the entire universe and you weren’t in it, it wouldn’t be right.”
“I’m so excited to fall in love with you too. Deeper and deeper.” For a man who once seemed like he’d run from even the basest of emotions or stomp them out like they were flames and they’d spread and consume him, he embraces it with such eagerness now.
“Deeper and deeper,” he agrees. He kisses me passionately and then takes a moment to admire my dress. “It’s lovely. You’re lovely. The most gorgeous woman, inside and out. And I’m the luckiest man.”
“Oh goodness. Stop that. I’ve been half mad with lust, so there’s no need to butter my biscuit.”
He laughs, long and deep, because he knows I’m just kidding. I’m blushing, but I know this man doesn’t do flattery. There’s nothing he doesn’t do that’s not utterly and refreshingly honest.
“What if I tell you that I bought Peach Lips a new kind of catnip? We might have to call her Watermelon Summer Moon Lips if she finds a new favorite.”
“Watermelon Summer Moon Lips? I love that name.”
“We should start our own catnip farm one day and grow Peach Lips as much catnip as she could possibly want.”
“Ooh! A side hustle. I’ll need something to blow off the stress of getting through the next over half a decade of school.”
His brow wrinkles in a frown. I can tell he’s holding in his laughter so hard that it’s actually marring his perfect face. He finally says it. “I can think of something that is a great stress reducer.”