Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 89012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 89012 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 445(@200wpm)___ 356(@250wpm)___ 297(@300wpm)
“Well, there’s nothing to worry about right now. There’s not a damn thing to bother you tonight.”
Her eyes soften. She places her fork on the side of her plate and reclines back in her chair.
“Tell me something,” she says.
“Anything.”
“What bothers you at night? What keeps Maddox Carmichael awake?”
I abandon the avocado and push a piece of mango around the plate. “Lots of things.”
“Do you still have bad dreams?”
The tenderness in her voice hits my heart. How does she remember that?
The night she told me about her dad, I told her about the nightmare that routinely plagued me. I only told her so she wouldn’t feel alone in her pain. So she wouldn’t feel like she was the only one with fears about real things they can’t control.
“Sometimes …” I say.
“About Banks?”
I set my fork down and take a deep breath. “It’s the same one. I’ve had it for almost twenty years.”
“Have you ever told anyone else about it?”
“Not in a long time.” No one cares anymore.
I sit across from her, the day in question rolling through my mind like an old movie reel. “It was from when we were kids and had just gotten a pool. Thought we were big shit.”
She doesn’t move, just watches me.
“And we were all outside goofing off—all of us except Foxx. It was hot as hell that day.” I take a deep breath. “Banks had just come out and didn’t have his life jacket on. The kid couldn't swim.”
My stomach twists as the memory comes roaring back.
I can feel the sun of that day. Taste the chlorine of the pool. Hear the splash …
“I was on the slide. I don’t know what happened—to this day, I’m not sure what happened—but all I know was that Banks was in the middle of the deep end by himself. Underwater.”
Ashley’s eyes go wide.
My entire body chills.
“I remember making eye contact with him just as I shot off the bottom of the slide,” I say. “His eyes were huge—terrified. Begging me to do something as he sank to the bottom. And he looked at me like … like … like he thought he was going to die, and I was his only chance.”
She reaches across the table and touches my hand.
“He didn’t, obviously,” I say, stroking the side of her finger with my thumb. “I landed not far from him and pulled him up. My brothers helped me get him out of the water, and he was fine. Scared shitless, but fine. But I remember praying as I got my arms around him that if God just let him be okay, I’d take care of him.” I smile sheepishly. “I know it’s so fucking stupid—”
“It’s not. It’s really not.”
I chuckle. “No, it is, and I’ve never told anyone that happened. I mean, do I think God is holding me to a promise I made when I was a kid? No. But that moment … he’s my brother.”
As if that explains it all, I shrug. Then I slip my hand out from under hers.
“Maddox … you must have been terrified.” She searches my face with an empathy that makes it hard to breathe. “Crazy antics or not, I can imagine there is a sense of need to watch out for Banks. You can’t just experience something so traumatic—kids accidentally drown every day—and then be on your way. It doesn’t work like that.”
“That’s exactly how it works. You move on to the next thing. Every happening can’t be a cataclysmic event with six kids in the family or else you’d be in panic mode all the time. You stand, brush yourself off, and keep going.”
She forces a swallow. The way she looks at me is so tender. God, she’s beautiful.
I push the avocado around my plate again, frustrated that I just made a fun night somber with my ridiculous confession.
Why the hell did I bring this up now?
Something is on the tip of her tongue, a response brewing inside her beautiful head, but she doesn’t say it.
I raise my brows in hopes of lightening the mood. “Fun honeymoon conversation, huh? Sorry about that.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you told me. It helps me understand pieces of you I didn’t know before.” She smiles. “That’s what honeymoons are for, right? To get to know one another.”
I wink. “I think traditionally it’s in a more physical way, but okay.”
“Well, considering we’re sitting on a beach with other people within eyesight and servers coming at any point, keeping it nonphysical is probably our best option unless we want to get thrown out of here. Besides,” she says, pressing her lips together, “you had your chance.”
“My chance? I only get one?”
She shrugs. “We’ll see.”
I chuckle. “Fine. Your turn. Tell me something about you that I don’t know—something to help me understand Mrs. Ashley Carmichael.”
I wait for that to make my stomach twist. But it doesn’t. Weird.