Total pages in book: 113
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109086 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 545(@200wpm)___ 436(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Correction. I was munching on a hero. That’s what the brochure said they called them here.
So far the receptionist hadn’t spotted me, but I was ready to bolt if I needed to. I wasn’t normally a mess like this, but my god, half of my life had just been pulled out from under my feet.
Focus.
Focus, Sawyer! New mission. Fix the aunts. Starting with yourself and Graham.
Everything aligned again inside of me. My feet found solid ground. I had a purpose in life again.
Pulling up Graham’s Instagram, I focused on the pictures of him and his husband. They enjoyed traveling. Paris. Arizona. Redwoods. Japan. They went all over, and I checked the timestamps. All those places were posted within the last two months. They were big travelers.
It was helping. Some of the madness in my mind was fading.
I lost track of time.
My mouth was almost watering at the thought of all that traveling.
Coming here to New York was the most I’d traveled in my life. My parents weren’t adventurous like that. If we traveled at all, it’d be Glacier or hiking. We were big on hiking, or my dad and I were. Mom, not so much. Then Beck was always studying.
He said we didn’t have the money for traveling.
So I kept working.
He wanted a house.
So then there were mortgage payments for that as well.
And I kept working.
Pain sliced down my insides, but dammit. I needed to start dealing with what happened.
Swallowing a lump that formed in my throat, images flashed from that time in my life.
I loved college. It’d been fun. I liked going to class. I liked having the dreams of my degree, what kind of job I could do with it. Where I could work, if I wanted to travel with my job.
That’s where I met Manda. She was on the same floor in my dorm. And after going to a fraternity party, we met Beck and his friends. It’d been flutters-at-first-sight for me.
God.
Beck. He had charisma. He was good looking. He was charming. When he smiled at me, I melted.
What a fucking joke I turned out to be.
Here I was, still in New York. Still hadn’t done what I came here to do.
I was still being a joke.
I had one more night booked at the hotel. The honeymoon funds were running low.
I wasn’t rich. Most of my money went to supporting Beck, paying for his school loans, paying for the house. I didn’t have enough to get a place here. No way.
Beck emerged from graduate school relatively debt-free, thanks to me. He loved what he did.
My college degree was in marketing, but in Bear Creek, Montana, there wasn’t a job market for that degree.
Being a receptionist wasn’t the fulfilling part for me. It was in who I worked with and the people that came into the business who I helped. People liked me.
I was way nicer than the one that worked at Graham’s architecture firm.
Then Beck wanted me to man his practice and things changed.
I didn’t enjoy working for Beck or with the other girls in the office, though I tried telling myself that I did.
That was another farce in my life.
Another place where I’d been deluding myself.
Bitter tears rolled down my face. One fell into the corner of my mouth. It was salty.
“Miss.”
I’d been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed the cop approaching. He had a hand to his radio and spoke into it before looking my way. He glanced across the street.
The receptionist was standing at the door, watching us, a smirk on her face. Businessmen and women were beginning to leave the building. I checked the time, seeing it was after five.
“We got a call that you were loitering here. The receptionist at Exhibit said you tried getting inside earlier. What are you doing here, ma’am? She’s concerned for you.”
“I . . .” was losing my mind. That was the truth of the situation. The real truth.
“What’d you say, Miss?” The cop stepped closer. His radio was going off.
I glanced back over the street, and stood straighter because my cousin was one of the men leaving for the day. He was carrying a briefcase.
I lifted my hand, and yelled, “Graham! Graham.”
He turned the other way, going at a fast clip.
“Graham!” It was a large street. Traffic had picked up so he wouldn’t be able to hear me.
I started after him.
The cop got in front of me. “Miss, you need to stay here and talk to me.”
I pointed in Graham’s direction. “That’s my cousin. I was waiting for him.”
“Your cousin?” He frowned, looking, but Graham was long gone. He’d melted among the sea of other businessmen and women. “Your cousin works at Exhibit?”
“Yeah.” I sat back down, my shoulders slumping.
“Did he know you were waiting for him?”
“He doesn’t know me.”
“He’s your cousin, but he doesn’t know you?”