Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 77415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 77415 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 387(@200wpm)___ 310(@250wpm)___ 258(@300wpm)
According to him, I was being antisocial and everyone missed me.
I highly doubted that.
If they’d missed me, they could’ve come to visit me. They didn’t.
I was alone.
I might go somewhere else. Visit some faraway place where I didn’t have to constantly see the man who still held my heart—after all of these years—at every turn.
“Dad!”
I turned my head to see Linc jogging toward where his father sat huddled around the group of men.
“Yeah?” He partially turned, and that was when I saw his face clearly for the first time that night.
He’d toned his beard down. Went to the barber shop or something, because those lines were way too clean and straight to say ‘I did this myself.’
“I got a call from the Sooners! They want me to play for them next year.”
Excitement started to bubble in my veins as I thought about Linc playing for one of the most prestigious football colleges in the entire United States.
My excitement dimmed when I caught Jessie looking at me. His face was blank, no longer the animated mask of excitement that’d been painted all over it just a few seconds prior.
He took one look at my face, curled his lip, and then turned so he could no longer look at me, but still hold a conversation with the men around him, as well as his son.
I felt utterly dejected.
I smoothed my skirt with shaking hands, bit my lip and finally decided that this was a mistake.
Only, my brother showed up just as I was about to take off, halting me before I could leave.
“Hey, where are you going?” He caught me by the arm.
I plastered on my fake grin that usually worked on him, and he smiled pleasantly before tossing one thick arm around my neck and pulling me into him.
He smelled sweaty, and I curled my nose up at him in disgust.
“You stink.” I cleared my throat when it hitched up.
Luckily, he didn’t notice, because, by that point, he’d dragged me into the main room again, allowing me to see Jessie clearly.
His eyes clashed with mine, and for just a second, I didn’t see that blank mask in his eyes.
I saw relief.
But the relief was gone in a flash, making me question whether I’d seen what I thought I had, or if it’d just been my imagination. My stupid hope getting the best of me.
“I brought a new card game!” Tommy announced to the room.
It was a party, yes, but this was a family one. One that meant it was only club members, and their families here.
Thank God.
I didn’t think I could handle seeing a woman rubbing up against Jessie’s side, as I’d had to see at the last event I’d been unfortunate enough to attend.
“And what is this card game?”
Tally, Tommy’s wife, drawled from the opposite side of the room where she was speaking with Sean’s new woman, Naomi.
My eyes skated away from the woman since she was glaring at me, too. She had done so each and every time I’d made eye contact with her over the last hour.
“It’s called Would You Rather?”
Groans filled the room.
“What’s Would You Rather?”
That was from Big Papa.
“It’s a game that gives you two different scenarios, neither of them good, and you have to choose which one you’d rather do. Such as: Would you rather fall, smack your face on the ground, and lose two teeth or would you rather sit down, fall asleep, and wake up with fire ants covering every inch of your body and crawling down your urethra.”
The room went silent at Jessie’s son’s words.
My gaze flashed to Jessie, who was trying hard not to laugh.
“That’s very interesting, kid. I think I’d rather lose my two front teeth,” Big Papa said.
“You can’t play this one,” Tommy Tom pointed at him. “It has adult language.”
Linc’s eyebrow rose, just like Jessie’s did, and he grinned.
Then he looked over at his father and the two of them shared a secret laugh.
My heart kicked at seeing the smile on the man’s face, and I clenched my hands into fists as I tried to look at anything but the gloriousness of that man wearing a grin.
Tommy walked forward and finally dropped his hand from around my neck, allowing me to stand up straight for the first time in five minutes.
I stretched my shoulder out and took a seat, trying to ignore the fact that Jessie and his son took a seat almost directly across the room from me.
Though they were as far away from me as they could get, they still were in the same room.
And just like it always did lately, my heart started to pound, and my cheeks started to flush.
Memories assaulted me, and I pulled my phone out to give myself something to do besides staring at my long-lost love, who now hated me.
Though my phone had changed a lot over the last fourteen years, I still had his number stored in my contacts.