Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75592 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
So the wedding picture was meant to legitimize us in her eyes.
I watched as her gaze moved slowly from picture to picture.
When she got to the most recent one of Rook, her finger moved out to trace his face.
And when she settled on the wedding photo, her eyes welled up.
“Oh, I didn’t want to make you cry,” I said, panicking that I might trigger… something.
Instinct had me trying to take the trigger—the pictures—away.
But Lorna snatched the sheet back, hugging it to her chest.
“Sorry. Of course you can keep it. I can bring you more pictures next visiting day, if you want. Rook had a hard time finding older ones, but he did get a few. I wanted him to include the one of him from the Christmas when he got his first little toy laptop. You can just see in his eyes how much he was going to grow to love computers…”
I went on like that, describing the pictures Rook had found, stories he’d told me from when he’d been growing up. I hoped it acted like a tether, like a rope she could use to pull herself back out of her mind and toward her life.
By the time the nurse came by to tell me that visiting hours were coming to an end, I was actually hoarse from speaking.
“Well, I have to get going,” I said, going over to tuck her blanket back up a little bit, then stealing the candy wrapper and stashing it in my pocket. “But I will be back in just a few days, okay? It’s been really nice talking to you, Lorna. I will bring Rook back your love.”
I was about to turn and leave.
But then a hand closed around my wrist, giving me a squeeze.
It was over in a blink.
But it felt like progress.
“He loves you too,” I told her, finding my eyes suddenly flooded as I gave her a smile before making my way out into the hall.
“I know, it’s hard,” the nurse said when she saw me, giving me a sympathetic smile.
“She’s in there,” I said, sniffling. “I saw signs of her trying to… come out, if you will.”
“I feel the same way. I really think she’s on the right meds now. We just need to get the dosage right. And I think the visits will help. Even if you snuck in contraband,” she said with a little wink.
“Rook said her favorite food in the world is fettuccine alfredo. I’m not above sneaking a plastic bag of it in there inside my shirt,” I told her, getting a tinkling little laugh as we walked back to the nurse’s station.
She told me the next visiting day, then we said our goodbyes.
I was in such a rush to get home to tell Rook the good news that I’d gotten myself pulled over for speeding.
I honestly didn’t even give the ticket a second thought.
Not until, a few weeks later, it would come back to bite me in the ass.
But at the moment, all I felt was joy as I ran into the clubhouse and threw myself into Rook’s arms, my words tripping over themselves to tumble out.
Rook’s head fell onto my shoulder to hide the glassiness in his eyes as I told him what I—and the nurse—thought.
That his mother was coming back.
That, eventually, he would have her again.
Finished, I turned to Detroit.
“How is your fettuccine alfredo?” I asked.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Rook
From the moment Tessa flew into my arms after going to see my mom for the first time, it was like something finally, I don’t know, clicked with us.
Or, perhaps more accurately, like the walls Tessa put up between us crumbled. And, for once, she didn’t stoop to try to build from the rubble.
When we went back to the apartment after dinner—celebrating with cake we bought from the diner that was nowhere near as good as the one Detroit and Everleigh had made—and sat close on the couch that no one could call it anything other than ‘cuddling.’
We talked more about my mom, about needing to make another collage for her, and bring her more snacks.
Eventually, though, there was no talking.
Because her head angled up to look at me. And I couldn’t stop myself from leaning down and stealing a kiss.
It was just a soft, sweet one. More gratitude and shared happiness than anything heated.
It wasn’t long, though, before our bodies were remembering how much we liked being close, how well we moved together.
It didn’t take long before she was starting to straddle me. Before my hands were reaching to pull her clothes off.
Then all there was in the world was touching, tasting, riding, getting completely lost in each other.
And afterward, bed. Together.
When she woke up in the morning with me behind her, my cock already hard against her, she rocked back into me, let me finger her until she couldn’t take it for another moment, then begged me to slide into her.