Total pages in book: 98
Estimated words: 92899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 464(@200wpm)___ 372(@250wpm)___ 310(@300wpm)
The job at SERA came with two-week breaks between every eight-week session, which meant I could spend ten weeks a year with him in California. If he was able to come to Legacy for weekends and holidays here and there, maybe we could make it work. At least until we came up with something better, something more permanent.
When I got back to Cabin 8, I texted him again while trying to juggle Chickie’s leash and open the cabin door at the same time.
I’m headed to Majestic in the morning. Be safe.
I didn’t realize until later how a simple text could have been so utterly misinterpreted.
26
TOMMY
If I’d known how long it would be before Foster and I got to talk, I would’ve followed him back to Cabin 8 yesterday.
Since I hadn’t, I’d stayed behind to calm my family. Once they’d left, there’d barely been enough time for me to shower, kiss Foster’s sleeping forehead, and retrieve Chickie before rushing back to the main building to meet with Trace about “the future of my job at SERA.”
That convo, which had also included an epic—and, yeah, well-deserved—dressing-down for being an idiot, had been interrupted by an emergency call, and the next thing I knew, I was in a helicopter on my way to the far side of Slingshot Mountain for a medical assist. There hadn’t been time to tell Foster I was leaving, even if I’d wanted to chance waking him with a text.
The following twelve hours had been nonstop, to the point that I’d finally collapsed in one of the on-call room beds at the hospital in Billings so I could catch enough sleep to make my way back to Legacy safely. I’d woken hours later to the gentle nudging of a hospital admin handing me the keys to a rental car they’d arranged for me.
By the time I slid into the vehicle’s cool leather seat and pulled out my phone, it had been nearly eighteen exhausting hours since I’d spoken to Foster, and I decided I couldn’t wait another minute.
Which was when I saw the text that had come in last night.
Foster
I’m headed to Majestic in the morning. Be safe.
Maybe it was the long shift and all of the stress. Sleep deprivation. A muddled head from having just woken up. But this seemed weirdly like a brush-off.
I quickly texted Trace.
Leaving Billings now. Did something happen with Foster?
I sipped shitty coffee from the hospital while I waited for a response, but it didn’t help my brain fire any better.
Trace
You mean about him leaving?
I stared at the text, trying to figure out what the hell was going on.
Was there a family emergency?
Trace
Not that I know of.
Did he quit?
Trace
I think so.
Jesus fucking Christ.
Had Foster seriously left SERA in order to get away from me? He’d told me he loved me—
Actually, no. He’d said I’m in love with you, and I can’t fucking stand it. This had seemed incredibly romantic at the time. Now, combined with the last thing he’d said before walking away from me and my family—This is too much for me.—it felt like something else entirely.
My hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly they hurt.
How dare he chicken out without even talking to me? Was he really that immature? I didn’t like to think so, but he was undeniably on his way to Majestic, and if it had been a previously planned thing, wouldn’t he have mentioned it?
I was pulling out of Billings before I knew it, and with each mile that passed, my anger grew more wild and feral, a volcanic eruption that could level entire cities.
I was fucking furious.
Furious enough to take Hwy 310 instead of 212 and head straight for the Wyoming border.
Like any sane person did when they wanted to commit murder.
Thankfully, it was hard to fall asleep at the wheel when you were contemplating violent death.
That motherfucker.
I thought about calling Foster, lighting him up with all of my thoughts and feelings as soon as humanly possible, but if I did that, I ran the risk of him shutting me down. Telling me not to bother coming.
I needed to see his gorgeous, awful face.
When I pulled into Majestic, I realized I recognized it from a day trip to a rodeo when I was a teenager. We’d been on our way to Yellowstone in a camper, and Mom and Dad had given in to Hazel’s insistence that we stop in Majestic to see a rodeo star named Avery Hart. Hazel had been in her mid-twenties, and Avery had been her semi-famous crush for a year already.
The two of them hadn’t actually met until two years later when the rodeo came to Legacy during another summer vacation, but now that I saw the fairgrounds on my way into town, memories flooded in. Majestic was charming. I could see why Foster took so much pride in his role as protector of this place.