Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 43512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 43512 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 218(@200wpm)___ 174(@250wpm)___ 145(@300wpm)
Delaney is curled into my side, her cheek on my chest, one leg thrown over mine like she belongs there. I’ve got an arm around her, my palm spread across her back, fingers tracing idle circles through the thin fabric of her shirt.
I could do this forever.
That thought hits me so clean it almost scares me.
Who am I kidding?
I’ve wanted forever with her since I was twelve and she dared me to jump off a rope swing and then laughed like she’d just invented happiness.
I tip my head down and press a kiss to the top of her fiery red hair. She hums softly—sleepy, content—and it goes straight through me.
“You’re thinking too loud,” she murmurs.
I smile into her hair. “Am I?”
“Mmhmm.” She shifts, cuddling closer. “Your chest gets tight when you’re spiraling.”
Great. She can read my body like it’s a language.
I keep my voice light. “What else do I do?”
“You get quiet.” A pause. “Like you’re bracing.”
The room is dark except for the faint spill of moonlight through the curtains. It paints her face in soft edges when she tilts her chin up to look at me.
“Nash,” she says gently, like she’s touching a bruise with her voice, “talk to me.”
The request lands different than it used to. When we were younger, “talk to me” felt like a trap. Like if I said the wrong thing, I’d ruin everything.
Now it feels like permission.
I let out a slow breath. My hand slides up her back to the nape of her neck, thumb rubbing a steady rhythm. “You ever think about that night?” I ask quietly.
Her eyes don’t flinch away. “Graduation?”
“Yeah.” My throat tightens around the word. “The night we almost—”
“Kissed,” she finishes, voice barely above a whisper.
I nod once.
In the dark, my memories sharpen instead of blur. The smell of our future in the air. Her hair falling over her shoulder. The way her mouth parted when she looked up at me, like she was deciding to be brave.
And then the sirens.
For me.
Delaney’s fingers curl lightly in my shirt. “I remember the flashing lights.”
The memory stabs. I swallow hard.
“The cops pulled up by the dock,” I say, forcing the words out slow and steady. “They asked if I was Nash Hawthorne. And I thought… I thought I was in trouble.” I let out a humorless laugh. “I wasn’t. Not like that.”
Her hand slides to my jaw, grounding me. “They told you to get home.”
“Yeah.” My voice turns rough. “They said there’d been an accident. That my dad—” I close my eyes for a beat. “That my dad’s truck was found down by the creek road. Door open. No sign of him.”
Delaney’s breath catches.
“You never talk about it,” she whispers.
I open my eyes again. “Because if I talk about it, it’s real.”
“It’s real either way,” she says, voice shaking but firm.
I nod, because she’s right.
“He’d been drinking with the fire crew,” I admit. “Not drunk. Just… celebrating. He told me earlier that day he was proud of me.” My throat tightens like it’s trying to choke me into silence. “And then he was gone.”
Delaney’s eyes shine.
“They searched for weeks,” I say. “Divers. Dogs. Volunteers. Every inch of that creek and every stretch downstream.” I stare into the darkness, seeing the water instead of the ceiling. “They never found him.”
Her palm presses to my cheek. “Nash…”
I swallow, hard. “You know what’s sick? Part of me still expects him to show up. Like he just… wandered off to cool his head. Like he’s gonna come back mad about the mess he left behind.”
Delaney’s face crumples, and she buries it into my chest.
I hold her tighter, because if I don’t, I might come apart.
“After that,” I say into the quiet, “I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had these brothers looking at me like I was suddenly the standard they had to live up to. I had my mom trying to keep us all breathing. And I had this hole where my dad used to be.”
Delaney shifts, listening.
“I knew I had to prove something,” I continue, voice low. “Prove I wasn’t just… the kid left behind. Prove I could be the kind of man he’d respect. So when the recruiters came around talking about purpose and brotherhood and doing something that mattered…”
I exhale. “I signed my name like I was signing my way out of grief.”
She’s quiet for a long moment. Then she whispers, “You thought war would fix you.”
“I thought war would make me worthy,” I admit.
Her fingers tighten on my shirt. “You were already worthy.”
I almost laugh. Not because it’s funny—because it hurts.
“I thought about you every day,” I say, and the confession comes out like a surrender. “Every day. In places that didn’t feel like earth anymore. I’d picture you at the creek. In the barn. At your kitchen table with flour on your hands. And I’d tell myself if I could just get back to you… I’d be okay.”