Total pages in book: 198
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 186242 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 931(@200wpm)___ 745(@250wpm)___ 621(@300wpm)
“Sign me up.”
His warm expression fueled my spirit. I really was totally in love with him. But the most surprising part was that the knowledge and acceptance of it brought no terror into my heart. None. Not a fragment of fear. Not a whisper of it.
This knowledge, this feeling, reminded me of concrete in its endurance, in the strength of it. I had told myself a hundred times that I wasn’t afraid of love, that I was ready to move forward, but the future was scary.
But Rhodes had earned every inch of what I felt with his attention, with his patience and overprotectiveness and just . . . with everything that made him up in general.
Feeling pretty damn ballsy, I leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek quickly and then started getting my stuff together. It didn’t take me long to get another change of clothes and pajamas together while Rhodes took the initiative and finished folding my laundry. When we were done, he carried my big suitcase down the stairs, not crying at all about how heavy it was even though I was only leaving for two days, as well as the grocery bag I’d stuffed with my extra clothes for tonight and tomorrow. I had already hidden their presents inside the hallway closet by Amos’s room yesterday when I’d gone over there before work. I had planned on calling them Christmas Day and telling them where to look for their gifts.
We were crossing the driveway when Rhodes carefully said, “This storm is going to be big, sweetheart. Don’t be too disappointed if your flight gets rescheduled, all right?”
“I won’t,” I assured him. Because I really wouldn’t be.
“Are you sad?” Amos asked the next night as we sat around the table. Rhodes had pulled out a set of dominos an hour earlier, and I’d played one game against him before Am had wandered out of his bedroom and apparently decided he was bored enough to join in too.
“Me?” I asked as I stretched my arms over my head.
“Yeah,” he asked before taking a quick sip of his strawberry soda. “Because your flight got canceled.”
The notification had come in the middle of the night. The beep of the app had woken me up, and I’d rolled over—in Rhodes’s bed, where he’d slept on his side and I’d slept on the other because he’d reminded me about the mice and the possibility of bats again—to find that my flight had been rescheduled from six in the morning to noon. By nine in the morning, it had been rescheduled to three, and by ten thirty, it had been totally canceled.
If I had felt even a little bit disappointed, the way that Rhodes had massaged my nape when I’d given him the news would have made up for all of it.
That and how he’d stripped down to his boxers in front of me before crawling into bed mere inches away, his fingertips brushing mine more than once before we’d fallen asleep.
I wasn’t sure how much longer we were going to be able to sleep in the same bed together—even though it had only happened twice—but I was ready for something. And from the look in his eye, I could tell he was ready for something too. Something deeper than a three-letter word that hung between us even though we had barely kissed each other.
But that was something to ponder over later when Am wasn’t sitting across from us at the table.
“No, it’s okay. As long as you don’t mind me hanging out with you guys . . .” I trailed off.
He made a face behind his can. “No.”
“Are you sure? Because my feelings won’t be hurt if you just want to hang out with your dad and your mom’s family.”
“No,” he insisted. “It’s fine.”
“It’s fine” from him was pretty much a blessing that I wouldn’t close my eyes to. “Are you two sad your dad had to cancel coming because of the snow?” I asked Rhodes.
Father and son looked at each other.
I hadn’t heard much about Randall Rhodes, but I did know that he had been invited to come over and spend Christmas Eve with them, since he definitely wasn’t invited to the get-together on Amos’s other side of the family, which might also be canceled now depending on road conditions. Personally, I thought it was a small step that the man had called and apologized for not being able to make it. But I was pretty sure I was the only one impressed by it.
He was trying. I thought.
“I’ll take that as a no,” I muttered. “Maybe we can find a scary movie to watch after this?”
That perked Am up, and I didn’t miss the slight snort out of Rhodes’s nose at the idea of watching something scary on Christmas Eve. I glanced at him and smiled. His sock-covered foot nudged mine beneath the table. I swore that was better than most kisses I’d gotten over my life.