Total pages in book: 44
Estimated words: 41687 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 41687 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 208(@200wpm)___ 167(@250wpm)___ 139(@300wpm)
You think I didn’t know? You think I couldn’t tell? You’d been looking at me like you wanted to climb me like a tree since you were a teen, sweetheart. I just pretended not to notice because I thought it was a phase you’d grow out of.
Magpie
Don’t call me sweetheart over text when you’re hundreds of miles away. It’s not fair.
Despite everything, I found myself smiling for the first time in weeks.
Sorry. But you asked when I knew I loved you. It was that night. When I held you while you cried and kissed your forehead and called you baby, and I realized I would burn down the entire world if it meant keeping you safe. That’s when I knew I was completely fucked.
Magpie
Why didn’t you tell me after my dad died? When you kissed me?
The smile disappeared. This was the part I was most ashamed of.
Because you were grieving and drunk and vulnerable, and I’d just taken advantage of all three. I convinced myself you’d only kissed me back because you needed comfort and I was there. I thought if I gave you space, you’d realize it was just grief and loneliness talking.
Magpie
And when I came to your office?
My dick got hard just thinking of that night. The defiant look in his eyes. His brave attempt to make our encounter physical only—as if that was ever going to be possible. The way he looked naked and splayed across my desk with the city skyline behind him.
I thought you were trying to get me out of your system so you could go back to Jake and be happy. You said that’s what you wanted.
Magpie
I lied.
Those two words hit me like a roundhouse to the solar plexus. I stared at them, reading them over and over, trying to process what they meant.
You lied about what?
Magpie
All of it. I didn’t want to get you out of my system. I wanted you to realize I was serious about wanting you. I wanted you to fight for me. To tell me you loved me too and that you’d rather have me than anyone else.
My hands were shaking as I typed.
Robbie…
Magpie
Instead you let me leave. You let me disappear for six weeks without a word. Do you have any idea what that did to me?
The guilt was crushing. I’d thought I was protecting him, giving him what he needed. Instead, I’d made him feel abandoned. Again.
I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry. I thought I was doing the right thing. I thought you deserved better than a controlling workaholic who’s too old for you and too fucked up to give you the life you want.
Magpie
Stop deciding what I deserve. Stop deciding what I want. I’m a grown man, Kit. I can make my own choices about my own life.
He was right. He was absolutely right, and I’d been an idiot. But I’d also already told him that.
You’re right. I’m sorry. What do you want, Robbie? Tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you.
The dots appeared and disappeared for a long time. Long enough that I started to panic, wondering if I’d pushed too hard again, asked for too much too fast.
Finally, his response appeared.
Magpie
Want you to come back. After your meeting, come back to me.
I was already reaching for the intercom before I’d finished reading.
“Brinn, change of plans. We’re going back to South Carolina.”
“Sir? What about the shareholder meeting?”
I looked down at my phone, at those five words that had just rearranged my entire universe.
Want you to come back.
“I don’t care,” I said. “I’m going home.”
I closed my eyes and inhaled before letting out a breath along with years of denial. “I’m going home to Robbie.”
10
ROBBIE
I’d read the same sentence in Marcus Chen’s book report four times before giving up and setting the stack of papers aside. The red pen in my hand felt foreign, my usual focus scattered to the four winds.
Want you to come back.
The words I’d texted Kit three hours ago kept echoing in my head, followed immediately by the crushing realization of what I’d just committed to. After six weeks of building walls, of convincing myself I was better off alone, I’d torn them all down with five simple words.
And now, I had to wait. Kit had said his meeting was in the morning, which meant at least another day, maybe two, before he could get back to South Carolina. Two days of second-guessing myself, of wondering if I’d made the right choice or if I was setting myself up for another heartbreak.
I glanced at my phone for the hundredth time, but there were no new messages. Just our conversation from earlier, ending with my request for him to come back to me.
The cottage felt too small suddenly, the walls pressing in on me like a trap. I needed air, space, movement. I needed to think.