Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 151097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 504(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 151097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 755(@200wpm)___ 604(@250wpm)___ 504(@300wpm)
I pouted while he pulled out a chair for me and kissed my cheek once I was seated. He then sat next to me at the head of the table. Out of habit, I glanced at the empty chair in front of me. Hunter would always sit across from me so that I could see her making faces at my choice of food.
As if he read my mind, Ocean murmured, “You’re going to have to explain this vegan food to me and why you torture yourself with it.”
Thoughts of Hunter fled as he poured white wine into a glass for me. I never really got into drinking the stuff, but for the sake of appearing more sophisticated than I was, I accepted the offering.
“It’s not torture.” I giggled. “It’s good for you. Good for your temple and your soul.”
Ocean spooned some black beans and rice onto my plate, along with some spicy jerk tofu. He then topped it with mango, pickled onions, avocado, and cilantro. “My soul?”
“Yes.” I shifted nervously in my seat because I couldn’t figure out why I found Ocean doing something as simple as filling a plate so damn sexy. Like everything else, he was just so damn efficient at it, knowing just how much food to give me and arranging it all in a way that made my mouth water. The sleeves of his dress shirt were rolled up, and the veins in his forearms became a constant distraction as I tried to remember what we were discussing. “No innocent animals had to die so that we may live.”
“What about carnivorous animals? Should they only eat plants, too?”
Used to the same arguments, I shook my head with a sigh. “They don’t have the capacity to know any better. We do.”
“Hmm,” Ocean hummed as he began making his own plate.
“You don’t have to eat vegan food just because I do.” I gave a tasting sip of my wine. It was light and crisp and a little dry, but also fruity. I immediately took a second, larger sip. “I already tried that with Hunter, and she told me to go to hell.” Ocean’s unreadable gaze flicked to me, and I shrugged with a small, fond smile. “She doesn’t pull any punches,” I told him. “Ever.”
To my utter shock and dismay, Ocean gently demanded, “Tell me about her. Your Hunter.”
“She’s my best friend,” I said matter-of-factly as if those two little words could encompass everything she is and has been to me. “We sort of grew up together, but we didn’t meet until we were fifteen during grief counseling. A-after my parents died.”
“Hunter lost someone, too?”
“Not really. Her mom died, but that bitch abandoned Hunter long before that. The counseling wasn’t her choice or mine, but we found each other because of it and promised we’d always be together no matter what.”
“A family of your own never entered either of your minds?”
I stared Ocean in the eye and repeated, “No matter what.”
Ocean held my gaze as he abandoned his food and slowly sat back in his chair. I realized with a phantom kick to the gut that I may have just thrown down some kind of gauntlet. At least that’s how it would seem to a man like Ocean. “Is that right?”
I swallowed back the urge to take it all back and squared my shoulders instead. Hunter was the other half of my soul. I wasn’t whole without her. We were good and evil. The sky and the ground. We were light and darkness. The sun and the moon. One could not exist without the other.
But it didn’t mean we were fated either.
Because Hunter and I were loss and love too. One could not exist without the other.
We could never be separated, but we could never truly be together either.
“Yes,” I said, the word tasting like ash and doom on my tongue. I plucked my wine glass from the table and took a healthy gulp to wash it all away.
“Aight then. You think she’d want to live with us?”
The glass slipped from my fingers. The remaining wine quickly stained the crisp white tablecloth as the goblet hit the table with a thud, rolled, and disappeared over the edge. “Wh-what?”
Before he could answer, one of the staff appeared out of thin air and cleared away the broken glass before disappearing into the shadows again.
“We’ve got plenty of room,” Ocean went on as if nothing had happened. “But if she prefers her own space, it ain’t nothing for me to set her up in one of the apartments in the building.” He shrugged.
Oh. I thought…
It didn’t matter.
I waited for my heart to slow to a normal rate before I spoke. “She’d probably like that. I’d have to talk to her first,” I said, unable to keep the hope that I’d see her again from my voice. “Get her to accept our marriage.”