Total pages in book: 110
Estimated words: 102620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 513(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 102620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 513(@200wpm)___ 410(@250wpm)___ 342(@300wpm)
Chapter 16
Caleb
“You excited about being home?” Theo asks from the passenger seat of the truck as we pass the halfway mark from Montgavin to my home where I grew up.
I have one hand on the wheel while my arm is lying on the door, the open window letting the breeze come through the cab. “It’s been a couple of weeks since I’ve seen my parents. So I’m excited to see them and then hang with Mila and her crew. Make sure the kids remember their cool uncle Caleb.”
“It hasn’t been a couple of weeks since you’ve been home.” He scoffs at me. “It’s been over two months since you’ve been home.”
“Considering that my home is in Montgavin now”—I look at the road—“I’m just visiting.” He snickers, laughing, no doubt laughing about the state of play that Sierra and I are in, which is a stalemate at this point.
“The more important question of the day is.” My voice trails, waiting for him to ask me what, but when he doesn’t, I just continue, “Have you decided what you are going to do after we finish Sierra’s house?” I look back over at Theo, who shrugs.
“Not sure, really,” he replies. “I have nothing holding me here so…”
“What the hell are you talking about? You have your house, your work with my father. Plus you are like an hour closer to your mother and father.” I mention just a few things he has holding him here.
“Yeah, but they’re all doing their own thing.”
“You need to settle down,” I tell him and he literally groans out.
“I don’t need to settle down,” he says, his voice tight. “Tried that. Well, almost tried that and she left.” He doesn’t continue his thought, nor does he say her name. Not sure he wants to think about his fiancée leaving him two days before the wedding. It broke his fucking heart and since then he’s been adamant that he will never, ever settle down. He’s good with one-night stands and only one-night stands. He doesn’t even give anyone his number, and the exchange is first name only if that.
“Maybe you need a change of scenery.” I tap my finger on the steering wheel.
“Is that what you did?” He tries to turn it around on me as if it would bother me.
“I guess so,” I admit. “I had my family, but other than that, I had nothing really holding me here. Besides, do you know how annoying it was when I would show up to job sites and people would be like, ‘wait, your father isn’t coming?’”
“You used to have Amber.” He reminds me of my first girlfriend, who I dated throughout high school and college. When we both got back home, she wanted more. I wasn’t ready to make that commitment to her, so we parted ways. Now I heard she’s engaged to some banker, or maybe she’s even married. I don’t ask about her and no one brings it up to me either.
“It was never going to work out with Amber.” I tap the steering wheel with my finger. “She didn’t really even want me. She just wanted the ring and all that because a couple of her sorority sisters were getting married. She wanted the Instagram life and not the real life. She was more worried about what everyone else thought about us than what I thought about us.” I don’t bring up the rest of it, keeping that to myself. I share everything with Theo but that part about Amber and me is going to be my secret.
“Better to know before you marry her than after,” Theo declares as I turn onto his street and see his house, pulling up to it as he reaches for the door handle. He pushes the door open with his shoulder. “See you Sunday.” He gets out and opens the back door. “Don’t call me before.” He grabs his duffel from the back seat before slamming the door.
I wait for him to be halfway down his walkway before I press the button to open the window and shout out, “That’s literally tomorrow!” Walking up to his front door, he holds his hand up and flips me the bird. It was probably stupid to drive five hours to be here for less than a day, but I needed to come home and check on things. Plus, if I’m five hours away from her, there is no way I could slip over to her house and do something she obviously is not ready for.
I make my own way over to the house I took over from my parents when I came back from college. It’s not far from the house they have. It is the house my father bought his first wife when they got married. After she left him with a John Doe letter, he let it sit and wanted nothing to do with it. It’s the house my mother rented when she came to town. From the stories everyone tells, he hated her, she hated him, and now they are happily married.