Total pages in book: 166
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 160042 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 800(@200wpm)___ 640(@250wpm)___ 533(@300wpm)
I need him to.
He was right that night. I do not deserve a man like him. A man who breaks my heart over and over again. A man who strips me bare, also over and over again. Who lies and cheats and then comes all the way here to thank me for saving his life like I’m some kind of a hero instead of a pathetic girl in love who has trouble holding on to her justified anger at him. Oh, and then he proceeds to torture himself on a daily basis.
It doesn’t matter if he loves me back, because it’s too late. We have too much history and misery between us.
So this is the only way to send him away, even though I want to throw up. Especially when the guy sitting in front of me reaches out and grabs my hand on the table with a smile that makes my insides crawl. This wasn’t what I had in mind when I pictured going on a date with another man.
He works at the shelter and has always been nice to me, smiling at me when I come in for work, waving good night to me at the end of the day. Most of all, he’s not a cowboy. His parents do own a ranch, but he wasn’t ever interested in things like that. His degree is in political science and psychology. So he seemed like a perfect candidate to ask out to dinner. Although I will say, I didn’t tell him this was a date. All I said was I’d love to grab dinner with him tonight and catch up on things because I’m new here. So this is a date only for pretend purposes. For the purposes of my stalker who won’t leave me alone. I figured if he wanted to watch, I should give him something to watch.
I also said to Colt—that’s the guy’s name—that we’d grab takeout and eat in the park instead of at the crowded and enclosed restaurant. I want Arsen to leave, not be further tortured. At least outside there’s an option for him to move around or pick a lonely corner somewhere, which he sometimes likes to do when things get hard, especially during bonfires at the ranch.
I breathe in a sigh of relief when the food arrives and Colt has to let go of my hand to pick up the brown paper bag. As soon as we walk out the door, I know he’s following me; he was there at the restaurant, too, at a table in a far corner. And he was across the street from the shelter to escort me back to the apartment at the end of my workday. I came out with Colt today, though, a first, so I don’t know how that affected him. I also don’t know what he thought about the detour we took to this restaurant.
But now that we’re walking to the park, I can’t ignore his heat. It’s so thick that I can feel it grazing my back. It’s brushing the nape of my neck, prickling the bare skin of my arms. And I just want to stop it. I want to tell Colt this was a mistake, that I’m not interested in him. I will never be interested in him or any other man because there’s only one man I want and he’s currently following us.
Just as I turn to Colt, he turns toward me and grabs my hand again. The shock makes me come to a halt. We’re a block away from the park, on the sidewalk with an alley between two buildings. Seems like a good place to talk and get this awkward encounter over with. But he’s the first to speak: “I never thought you’d be the one to ask a guy out.”
Yikes. So he knew it was a date. It makes things even more awkward, but I have to forge ahead. “Um, yeah, about that. I think I—”
“You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen,” he says, his brown eyes sparkling.
“Oh, I… Thank you. But I just—”
“And truth be told,” he keeps going, leaning toward me a little bit. “You’re exactly my type.” This is going downhill super fast, so once again, I take a breath to prepare to get my point across, but he doesn’t let me. “I’m into heavier girls. With curves and all that…” He pauses to gesture with his hands and motions toward my chest and then my ass. “This is fucking amazing.”
Embarrassed and quite frankly offended, I step back and finally speak: “I don’t think this is going to work out.”
But he either doesn’t hear what I say or chooses to ignore me, because the moment I widen the gap between us, he closes it and obviously intends to put his mouth on mine. I can smell garlic on his breath from lunch. But before he can make contact, he’s been pushed back.