Total pages in book: 162
Estimated words: 153946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 153946 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 770(@200wpm)___ 616(@250wpm)___ 513(@300wpm)
“Thank you.” I exhaled and the tight muscles in my neck loosened a bit. “I didn’t let myself consider it until now.”
“She only flew in to visit a few times when I was around, but even I know she would have been all for this plan. That little bungalow is too adorable to become an uninhabited shrine. She’d want you to use it to give yourself some options.”
“You’re right. Options are good.”
I hadn’t felt like I’d had any in years.
“Since you like them so much, I’ve got another one we can revisit right now. What would you say to using that rent money to fix up your house and put it on the market so you can move back here with me?” His words were rushed, as if he was worried I might stop them. “We’ve lived together before and neither of us wanted to kill the other by the end of it. And now that I have the beach house, if you did want to kill me, you could go collect shells and stare at men in Speedos until the feeling passed. Believe it or not, I miss having you around so much I’m even willing to make room for that hellhound you inherited.”
“You’re such a sweetheart,” I replied sincerely, at the same time my brain was yelling Stop the presses! and making several quick addendums to my previous plan.
“Now you’ve ruined it. I’m a dangerously handsome curmudgeon, not a sweetheart. Invitation revoked for at least thirty minutes.”
I’d thought renting the apartment would add money to my coffers to pay for my Jiminy plan. But maybe I hadn’t been thinking big enough.
“I do love your beach house.”
“It was an impulse purchase not long after you left, but the view from the bedroom balcony was too stunning to pass up. If you’ll remember, your room has a balcony too.” He didn’t need to remind me. I’d been to that beach house more than once since he moved in, and it was glorious.
“We’d have to split the bills,” I told him firmly.
“She’s talking bills now. That’s a good sign. I mean, we’ll fight about it later because I have expensive tastes and from what I can tell you’ve been living on ramen and crackers, but you sound like you’re really thinking about it this time.”
I was. Wouldn’t it be poetic if buying my house specifically for its separate apartment turned out to be the reason I could afford to fix it up, sell it and go back to the West Coast? Make a fresh start, close to my supportive bestie and away from the unhappy memories and failures that had sent my muse into hiding and my career into the toilet in the first place?
You thought moving here would solve your problems too.
True, but they were simpler problems then. I’d had a comfortable amount of money in the bank, my new book had just been sent to my publisher and I hadn’t turned forty yet.
I’d also been recently cheated on, had a newly widowed mother and a sister whose husband had been fighting cancer…and I was about to turn forty. It had been easy to sell myself the story of the romantically wronged heroine returning “home” to write the final book in her second bestselling fantasy series while providing comfort to her family. On paper, it was a comeback with a great redemption arc.
At the time, I’d only allowed myself to remember the good things about my stay here. My first best friend. My first period. My first crush. (Fine, yes, two of those things weren’t good so much as memorable.) In hindsight, my reminiscing had distracted me from a few large plot holes that quickly came back to bite me in the ass.
“Earth to August. Did you hear what I said? I hope you’re too busy paying attention to the road to answer me instead of daydreaming. You know how many crazy drivers there are out there.”
“Oh! Sorry, I got—” I turned a corner and my breath caught. How had I ended up here? I hadn’t even realized I’d been aimed in this direction. “Chick? I’m going to have to call you back, okay?”
“I was only kidding about the bills. I know how you are about that. We can split them.”
“Good. I really do love this idea, I promise. I just…need to run into the store for a second,” I lied, because he wouldn’t hang up if I didn’t.
“Okay, but you sound upset again, so if you’re shopping for more than an hour, I’m going to start pestering you. It’s your own fault for deciding to pack a year’s worth of emotional drama into a single morning without me. And now that you’ve practically accepted my invitation to live together, I’m not going to be able to think about anything else today.”