Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 85950 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 85950 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 430(@200wpm)___ 344(@250wpm)___ 287(@300wpm)
“We can’t,” I whisper, another round of tears threatening.
“What was that?”
I shake my head, incapable of repeating myself.
He doesn’t walk up to me and wrap his arms around me. He doesn’t repeat his offer, and I’m certain that’s because he didn’t mean to say it in the first place.
I want to turn and stare into his eyes, but I’d crumble if I saw relief there.
“You’ll get your baby, Ads.”
He doesn’t say we. There’s no us anymore. What we had is broken. I get no baby, yet I still don’t get to hold on to him.
It’s soul crushing, losing someone you were once so close to. It’s even worse when they’re only a handful of feet away but so unreachable they might as well be in another solar system.
“I have work to do,” I tell him, doing my best to look unaffected when I toss a smile his way over my shoulder.
“Ads,” he says, but there’s a certain level of resignation in his tone.
He sounds a little sad, but I can’t help him with his problems when I’m barely managing to keep a lid on my own emotions.
“It’s fine, Cash.”
“I want to stay, but I have to get to the office. Eastyn is—”
“Can you turn on the open sign on your way out?”
There’s a minute of silence, but I know he hasn’t left yet because, as always, I can feel his presence.
“Sure. Have a great day.”
His footsteps carry him from the kitchen and with his tone, he might as well have said have the day you deserve, but I know I already am. It’s been a horrible day, and I’ve only been awake for a couple of hours.
I knew my choices were going to bite me in the rear, eventually. I just never imagined it would happen so epically.
Chapter 27
Cash
I shouldn’t be surprised that she called Madison first. That transition has been slowly happening since Madison Kelly got back to town, but the reality of it doesn’t make the sting any less painful. Making a baby was something she and I were doing together, and I’m still not her first call.
Maybe trying to maintain her as my best friend was never meant to happen.
I don’t know how many times I’ve been told a man and a woman can’t be best friends. Their reasoning is that one of them, usually the guy, is only sticking around until he can shoot his shot.
I had a girlfriend in college tell me that once during an argument, and then when I got defensive about it, denying it of course because Adalynn was only a senior in high school back then, she called me out on that too.
She was right, of course. I just didn’t want to accept it. It made me feel like a creep, like some sort of pervert, as if I was being manipulative on some level just by being her friend. I vowed to never cross that line with her, as if I needed to prove something to someone who didn’t even matter in my life any longer.
I guess I’m still lying to myself as much now as I was back then because nothing has changed. That’s not exactly true. I think my craving for her has only multiplied. After touching her, tasting her, holding her in my arms, I know there isn’t another woman alive that will ever be able to match what I shared with her.
But the cold hard truth is that it’s all one-sided, and if I allow myself to really look at the whole picture, I can see that it always has been.
I don’t think Adalynn was using me. I’m not a narcissistic asshole. I just think that what we agreed to didn’t work out, and since she didn’t get pregnant, she wants to cut her losses. I’m certain she wants a baby. I’m just as certain that she’s decided that she doesn’t want one with me.
It’s been over a week since I saw her at the bakery, after Madison urged me to go to her.
I know she doesn’t think that I didn’t hear her say that we can’t try again, but I did. It crushed me then and still has the power to hurt me now. I’d never try and talk her out of it. I wish I could say I don’t want a woman who doesn’t want me, but Adalynn has been the end game for me for years. I let myself believe that the stars would align and we’d get our shot at happily ever after, but it seems my wishes were just that. Some sort of prayer that was never heard.
I now know where I stand with her, and that’s on the outside where I’m certain I always belonged.
She hasn’t called or texted, and when I was looking back through my phone over the last three weeks, I’ve been the one to reach out first each and every time. The last time I went to her dad’s house for a meal was after I asked her directly about it. She didn’t extend the invite on her own.