Total pages in book: 55
Estimated words: 50801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 50801 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 254(@200wpm)___ 203(@250wpm)___ 169(@300wpm)
I rush through my routine, doing my best to not think about Monroe doing the same thing in the next room. We're so close and yet separated by so much. I need to get a lock on these racing thoughts. If I can't, it's going to be hard as hell to hide my real feelings for her. She doesn't deserve to have a bomb like that dropped on her, not to mention how much it’ll hurt when she inevitably rejects me.
We want different things despite how great our friendship is. And that's fair. She doesn't owe me anything.
By the time I've changed into some sweats and a T-shirt, Monroe has dinner spread across the dining room table, that scent of hers—all rose and jasmine—driving me absolutely wild.
I take a seat across from her, digging into my food at the same time she does. “Thanks for ordering this,” I say, indicating my regular sandwich from our favorite bistro.
“Are you kidding?” she says around a big bite. “I can buy you dinner every day for the next year, and it won’t make up for all that you've done for me today,” she continues after she swallows.
“You've got to cut that shit out,” I say, shaking my head. “You know I’d do anything for you.”
Her eyes meet mine across the table, something churning there I can't quite read. That's a rarity for me. Usually, I can pick up on her mood in a heartbeat—something that's natural after all these years—but this one is a mystery.
A blink, and it's gone.
“You know me,” she says. “The last thing I want is to get in the way of your off-season plans.”
“I don't really have any plans,” I say after taking another bite. “I do have one trip booked, but it’s not for a few weeks.”
I think about the trip in question, wondering if she might want to go. I originally booked it during a late night after running into her and Liam again at The Queen’s Rum where all my friends had been hanging out. She’d been laughing at something he said, and I’d been struck with a fit of unmerited jealousy, thinking about how somebody as awful as him didn’t deserve to make her smile like that.
It's not like I’d ever offered myself up as an option, so I only had myself to blame. But in a moment of weakness, I'd booked a trip in an effort to get away from accidentally bumping into them again.
But now she’s living with me...
“Okay,” she says, taking a few more bites. “And if you ever need me to leave because you’re bringing a date home, I totally will. You just have to give me a heads-up.”
Shock makes me swallow my bite a little too hard, and I clear my throat “I don't bring women here, so you don't need to worry about that,” I say, unable to keep some of the seriousness out of my tone.
If I ever did indulge in a night of consensual, no-strings fun, I always went back to their place.
It wouldn’t be fair to bring a woman to my house when I have no intention of having a real relationship with them. Not when the only woman I've ever imagined making love to in my bed is currently sitting across from me.
“Do you think you’re going to want to bring dates back here?” I ask, the words scraping their way out of my throat in an obligatory way.
I don’t know if I’ll survive it if she does—
“Absolutely not,” she says, shaking her head. “I’m pretty sure I’m done dating for a while,” she says. “Again, it wasn’t serious with him. I don’t know why he wouldn’t listen when I said that up front. And you were right,” she continues. “I should’ve known that. You almost always are, but he wasn’t the same person he showed me in the very beginning, and I feel like a real idiot for not noticing, especially when you tried to warn me. But the way he just ignored me saying I didn’t want to be tied down and yet he kept joking about proposing to me...” She shakes her head, staring down at her half-eaten sandwich a little too long before she looks back at me. “Do you think that makes me a terrible person?”
“You’re the best person I know,” I say. “Sure, if you hid your intentions and let him believe you wanted to marry him, that would suck. But you never hide it. Everyone who truly knows you understands your stance on marriage and commitment. Every single reason you have for those feelings are justified.”
“And it wasn’t just the marriage stuff,” she continues. “He definitely changed after…” Her words trail off and she shakes her head.
“Changed after?” I ask, eyebrows raised.
She presses her lips together, like she’s silencing herself. After a few moments, she blows out a breath. “He just changed,” she finally says.