Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 97037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 485(@200wpm)___ 388(@250wpm)___ 323(@300wpm)
I swallow, resisting the urge to wipe my lips free of his kiss. I give him a soft smile, reaching out to squeeze his hand. “You too.”
He shakes his head, and I know he is trying to give me time to stop him. I won’t, though, because this moment just woke me up. I can’t keep doing this. I need a new tattoo, a new piercing, or maybe I’ll pull a 2007 Britney and shave my head. Wigs could be cool. A different color each day. When the door slams shut, I realize that he’s gone, and I’m left alone.
I wait for the loneliness to seep into my soul, but it doesn’t. Instead, I truly have the urge to go shave my head.
Maybe three glasses of wine would be a better idea.
I should probably make sure that Chad took his clippers with him before I give in to the urge to shave off all my long locks.
Nope, wine is a better idea.
Before I can get up to go to my wine bar, my phone rings. I know it’s not Chad since it’s my grandmother’s ringtone. I search for my phone that fell deep into the abyss of my chair and answer quickly. “Sorry, my phone fell—”
I can’t finish my sentence, though.
My grandmother is sobbing.
“Kitty?” I ask softly, her nickname shaky on my lips. She never let me call her Grandma, said she was too young to have a grandchild. I wasn’t a fan, but it’s all I’ve ever known. She doesn’t even let my dad call her Mom; everyone calls her Kitty. Her broken voice pulls me from my thoughts of how weird that is, and then she’s choking on a sob.
“Fable, he’s gone,” she sobs. “Grandpa passed away.”
I fall back onto the coffee table and cover my mouth.
Pain laces her words as she tells me, “They think it was a heart attack in his sleep. He said he wasn’t feeling well, kissed me, and then didn’t wake up. He’s gone. My love is gone.”
A sob I wasn’t prepared for leaves my lips, and I close my eyes as the tears burn down my skin. Phillip Winthrop didn’t have the patience for me, but he sure did show his love for me when it came to my skating. He was a man of few words, but his actions screamed his love.
God, he loved my grandma—and me, in his own way.
Could this day get any worse?
“You have to come home. I need you. Please.”
Yes. Yes, it can.
Home.
Thistlebrook, Tennessee.
A place I have refused to step back into for twenty years.
Yup, shaving my head is looking like a mighty great plan.
CHAPTER
TWO
Jett
I feel her slap upside my bicep before her throaty voice meets my ears. “Fix your face, Jett Thomas.”
For such a little thing pushing eighty-six, my great-nana can still sting my skin with ease. I look down at Beatrice Cook and shoot her a dark look. The sun shines off her freshly dyed pink hair as she beams up at me with bright-pink lipstick on her wrinkled lips. “Ow, Jesus, you old bat. Why’d you hit me so hard?”
“You’re glaring,” she says, setting me with a look with dark-brown eyes that don’t match her weathered face. No, those eyes are all-knowing and show she’s always up to something. Even now, her eyes are playful even if a bit somber. We are burying a very important person, not only to me, but also to our town.
“I’m always glaring. Pretty sure I came out of the womb glaring,” I mumble, and she snorts before wrapping her creased hands along my forearm. Along with her pink hair and pink lips, she’s sporting long claws of pink that I know are fake since she cannot cross-stitch with those talons. Bea is a wild lady. She doesn’t give a shit what people think. She volunteers at church, feeds the poor, bakes cookies for kids, and doesn’t miss a game of hockey on the weekends with her pink hair and loud mouth.
Everyone loves Bea.
But I’m her favorite.
“No, my sweet boy, you came out barking and fatter than ever.”
“I thought I was a baby, not a dog.”
“Could have fooled me,” she teases, patting my hand. “Told Maggie to return you to the pound multiple times.”
“It was only right since it was rude to leave my packmates to fend for themselves.”
“Exactly, you got steak, and they got kibble.”
“Unfair.”
“Tragic,” she volleys back, and we share a grin. She’s always said I remind her of my great-grandpa. I don’t remember him much, he passed when I was a baby, but he loved hockey and he loved Bea.
So, I’m proud to remind her of him.
She pats my arm again. “Enough of that. Why do you look like you want to cremate poor old Phillip instead of bury him in the ground?”
My brow furrows even more, the reality of the day making my chest ache. “When was it okay to start calling a funeral nice?” I ask incredulously, shaking my head as we walk toward where they’ll lay a man I respected more than anything to rest. “Oh, the flowers are so nice. Such a beautiful service. The sermon was so moving. They have such good food,” I say, mocking the townsfolk of Thistlebrook. “A man dies in his sleep, and it’s nice? I liked it better when people kept their mouths shut and cried.”