Total pages in book: 79
Estimated words: 70607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70607 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 353(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
She takes a bite of her omelet and leans over to kiss my lips. "Does this still mean we're on island time?" I ask her, knowing that we definitely have to talk about things. At least I know that I have to talk about things. She just looks at me, and I can't tell what she is thinking, or maybe it's because I don't want to know what she's thinking. I get this uneasy feeling in my stomach. "What are we doing?" I finally ask the question I've been wanting to ask her for the last two days.
She puts down her fork, avoiding looking at me. "I have no idea," she says honestly.
"What do you want?" I put my own fork down, the food not feeling so well in my stomach.
"I don't know." She shrugs her shoulders. "What do you want?"
"I want to be able to take you out on a date," I tell her, and I can see her shoulders slump just a bit.
"Do you really think that's a good idea?" She looks at me. "Like, think about it. I was getting married a week ago, and now I'm dating." I don't say anything to her, and when I don't, I can see that she is getting nervous. Her hands shake a bit. "How would that make me look?" I can't say anything to her. I can't even find the words. All of them are stuck in my throat as I listen to her make excuses about why we can't do what I've been dying to do for the past fucking five years. "How would that look for you?"
"I don't give a shit about how it would make me look," I answer her finally.
"Well, I do," she says. "It's going to be like, oh look, he took her out because he felt sorry for her. I can't even imagine the gossip that went on when I left. I can just hear the whispers, and I am going to have to hold my head high when I walk into a shop and people see me and point." She looks down, and then I see a tear escape the corner of her eye. "I just can't do it." I take a deep breath as my heart pounds in my chest. Pushing away from the counter, I grab my white T-shirt from the floor. "Ace," she says my name and I take one more look at her.
"I guess I know where we stand," I clip, grabbing my shoes. "Have a nice day, Shelby," I say, walking out of the house and closing the door behind me.
Chapter 26
Shelby
I grab my purse and get out of the car, slamming the door behind me. I take five steps toward the front door of the office before I realize I forgot my cell phone in my car. "Great," I say, walking back to the car and grabbing the phone from the passenger seat.
I'm closing the car door for the second time when I hear a car pull up, and I'm stupid enough to look up, hoping it's Ace. My heart speeds up in my chest, and when I look over, I see it's just Clarabella. "Morning," she greets, getting out of her car with a cup of takeout coffee.
"Shit," I say, turning and walking back to the car and grabbing the coffee from the middle console that I forgot. "Take three," I mumble to myself, closing the car again. I look up, seeing Clarabella waiting for me.
"Listen, I don't know what they did to you on that island. I know you said you did nothing but relax and chill all week long," she tells me when I get close enough, and we start walking up the stairs in unison, "but ever since you got back, your brain has been so fucking forgetful. I get it's hard to get back to the grind after vacation, but this is ridiculous, especially for you." I want to shout at her that I know, but if I do that, she’ll know something more is bothering me and right now, I'm not ready to discuss it. When I got back to the office on Monday, they were both waiting for me and wanted to know all the details, but all I told them was that we just relaxed and enjoyed the weather. I was lucky that my mother came in, and the talk changed, and they couldn't ask me more questions that I didn't want to answer, especially since my head was still spinning about him wanting to date me. All I could do when he left was look at his plate and then look at the door again. For whatever reason, I thought he was going to come back and be like let's talk about this. But he didn't. Instead, I got up and put the plates away and got ready for work. Because that was what was expected from me.