Total pages in book: 42
Estimated words: 39338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 197(@200wpm)___ 157(@250wpm)___ 131(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 39338 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 197(@200wpm)___ 157(@250wpm)___ 131(@300wpm)
This is a family. The forever kind.
Since the moment my father dropped the bombshell on me and my mother, I’ve lived with the belief that such a painful tragedy can happen to anyone. At any time. That letting people close meant opening myself up for an eventual blow that I won’t see coming. They will eventually choose someone else over me. They will decide to move on, and I’ll be left lonely and reeling, wondering if I was the problem.
Watching Sumner’s family through the window, seeing the visible proof of how much they cherish each other, isn’t enough to disprove my lifelong theories . . . yet. But I am willing to watch and see. Maybe they will prove me wrong. And allowing for that possibility means I’ve come a long way already.
One of the women in the window rubs some of the condensation off the glass, spying me sitting in my idling car at the curb. She turns to the room, gesturing wildly—and then the front door of the house quite literally bursts open, and adults and children spill out onto the lawn. I briefly consider putting the car in drive and flooring it, but a second later, I realize something. These people definitely would have chased me down.
“Hi, Britta!” calls a young woman, a child sitting on her hip.
“Holy shit, she’s beautiful,” remarks another one of the sisters.
“Not as beautiful as you, dear,” drones a dutiful husband, who is promptly fist-bumped by one of the other husbands.
“Hey.” Sumner’s mother knocks on the windshield. “What are you doing sitting out here in the cold, honey? Get inside!”
“Oh, um . . .” I fumble with my seat belt, desperately searching for Sumner in the throng of people. “Oh boy,” I whisper to myself. “I guess this is happening.”
I take a gulping breath and climb out of the car, trying to pretend like my pulse isn’t pumping like a jet engine. “Hi. I’m Britta.” I stick a clammy hand out toward the closest sister for a shake, and I’m pulled into a back-slapping bear hug instead. “Oh!” I manage, though my windpipe is being crushed. “It’s so nice to meet you.”
“I’m Syd. The one holding the kid is Chrissy. We’ve got two more sisters back home, but one is too knocked up to fly, and the other just started a new job. They’re demanding pictures of you, so don’t get alarmed if I start snapping away like a stalker.”
“Oh, no, I don’t mind—”
“Out of the way! Let me get a look at my daughter-in-law,” booms Sumner’s mother, elbowing her way into the fray and then jerking me into a swaying embrace. “My son hasn’t stopped talking about you since we arrived.”
“Mom,” complains Sumner from somewhere in the group, but everyone is crowded too close for me to see him. “Enough. You’re scaring her.”
“I own a bar where half the clientele are hockey players,” I mutter, craning my neck to search for him. “I don’t scare that easy.”
Everyone laughs.
“What is that in the back seat?” inquires Syd. “Looks like food.”
“I love food.” This, from one of the husbands.
“It’s . . . nothing. Really.” I block the rear window with my body, self-doubt creeping into my throat. “I forgot to bring it inside last night. From the bar. A customer brought it in—”
“Nope. Looks hot.”
“Oh, well . . . you know how powerful Tupperware can be . . .”
“Soup.” Sumner’s father inspects the container through the window and nods, making eye contact with everyone. “That’s definitely soup.”
All right, I have to own this. Why didn’t I taste it, though? Huge oversight.
“Okay. Yes.” A swallow gets stuck in my throat, but it dislodges when Sumner finally moves into view, his chest lifting and plummeting when he sees me. Several emotions roam across his features. Relief, yearning, possessiveness. Britta, he mouths, coming toward me while glancing between me and the back seat. “I guess I made . . . like, I don’t know. It’s broccoli cheddar soup?”
There is a collective gasp from the assemblage.
“Oh God. What?” I search the faces of the group. “Did someone else already make it?”
“No.” Sumner’s mother sniffs and draws me back into a hug. “You made my son’s favorite food, that’s all. It’s appreciated.”
“That soup is a bitch to make,” points out Chrissy, looking impressed.
“That’s like ten thousand brownie points,” says one of the husbands. “Respect.”
Sumner has been walking toward me slowly, as if in a trance, and now he blocks everyone and everything out with his ridiculous size. I inhale the sight of him, this man who has occupied my every waking thought since the last time I saw him, standing in my bedroom looking so fierce and frustrated and . . . sure of me. Sure of us. “You made me soup, sweetheart?”
It is a powerful thing, the way my heart begins to hang glide around my chest as soon as he’s close to me. “It’s probably terrible.”