Total pages in book: 70
Estimated words: 70294 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70294 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 351(@200wpm)___ 281(@250wpm)___ 234(@300wpm)
“Wow,” Ori said, nodding his head as he finished it. “This is an incredible portrait of the team. Finn, why don’t you ever write about me like this?”
“Hey. I’m not exactly a writer,” Finn said. “I’m a massage therapist. I give you fucking incredible free massages.”
“You really do,” Ori said.
“That’s not good enough for you, my love?” Finn asked, teasing him.
“It’s the best thing in the world, and you know it,” Ori told him, squeezing his ass for a moment. “Just sayin’, maybe write me a little love poem?”
Finn cracked a smile, shaking his head. “I hate you. And love you, too. How’s that for a poem?”
“Best one ever.”
The other guys in the bar were already many drinks deep.
I realized that I didn’t feel uncomfortable about it, either.
Max was behind the bar slinging drinks instead of tossing them back, but his boyfriend, Draven, was polishing off whiskey shots like a professional.
Jesse Sanocki, the hockey heartthrob, was in the middle of some kind of drinking game with Mason, the two of them intertwining their arms and taking shots of some bright green concoction together.
Andrew must have seen me glancing around at the rowdy crowd.
He came up beside me, putting his warm hand on the small of my back.
“You doing okay?” he asked softly. “With… all of this? The bar?”
I pulled in a slow breath, leaning into him.
“I swear you can read my mind sometimes, Peachel.”
He furrowed his brow a little, his attention like a spotlight only on me.
“Why? What’s up? You know if you’re ever uncomfortable in a bar, we will leave. Point blank. No questions asked.”
I swallowed.
You are so nice to me.
So much kinder than I’ve ever deserved.
“Actually, I was thinking the opposite,” I told him. “Everyone around me is sauced up, but nothing here feels like… like the past. Nothing feels bleak.”
“People at the Hard Spot Saloon just know how to have fun,” Andrew said.
“Right. And no one in here looks like they just want to hurt someone. Well, maybe in a fun way.”
Andrew chuckled. “Exactly. Ever since I started coming here more, it just feels like a home. You know?”
“Yeah.”
I felt a strange sensation in my body.
My heart started pounding a little faster, and it was like I could feel walls going up inside me, all of a sudden, like some weird habit from the past.
Don’t say it to him, I told myself.
But another part of me thought something else entirely.
Or maybe you should fuckin’ say it.
Maybe it’s about time you take risks like those.
“Peachel,” I said, looking up at his brown eyes. “I feel at home with you, too.”
It was the sort of thing I never used to let myself feel, let alone say to someone.
My heart raced.
I felt exposed, vulnerable, and raw all over again.
Goddamn it.
This.
This is what it feels like to trust someone.
“I feel at home with you too,” he said. It felt like feeling myself drop out of a plane, but then finding that I had a parachute, all along.
He felt it too.
He was right here with me.
Trusting me, too.
“And thank you, by the way. For saying you’re proud of me earlier.”
He nodded. “Of course I am.”
I moved in to kiss him because if I looked at him for another moment, I was liable to say something that went too far.
Or maybe it wouldn’t be too far, to tell him I was starting to love him.
Everything I did with Andrew was new territory.
Each step, a little bit scary.
But every time I walked forward into that fear, he was there to catch me. Rewarding me with his kindness, shining right through that big ego, every time.
“Come dance with me,” he said, squeezing my hand. “And don’t say no.”
“Can’t say no to you, Peach,” I murmured. “And I’m pretty sure I’d do anything with you, at this point.”
I’d always thought that trust issues were a strange thing.
But honestly?
Trust was even stranger.
It was a leap of faith. Pure hope that someone else would be able to meet you anywhere.
Andrew Peachel fucking deserved it.
And as long as he was right there with me, it seemed impossible for me to feel anything else about him. Trust. Pride. Hope.
And real fucking love.
EPILOGUE
ANDREW, FIVE MONTHS LATER
“I love you.”
“I love you more than that.”
“Fuck off, I love you more than it’s possible for one man to love another, and you’re not going to say shit about it.”
“I love you so much I want to punch you in the face for ever thinking you’re unlovable.”
Gray looked at me after I said that last one, glaring at me. “I didn’t just think I was unlovable. I also didn’t think I was capable of love.”
Right now we were in my room at the frat house. All of the other guys had gone out to see some movie, but I’d stayed here to hang with Gray.
He was supposed to be helping me in one of my spring classes, English Literature.