Total pages in book: 38
Estimated words: 35154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 35154 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 176(@200wpm)___ 141(@250wpm)___ 117(@300wpm)
But it hadn’t been those things at all. It’d been amazing. Every single thing about the experience had felt so fluid, like us being together like that just made sense in the universe. And yet, I’d walked away because I knew what it was. Even if something in my heart had just latched onto them with everything I had, I knew that was silly.
What happened back there was a one-time fling — a wild story. I knew it was for them, and I knew that’s what it should be for me. It still didn’t stop me from cursing myself the whole hike over.
But that all faded the second the door opened and my best friend came shrieking into my arms.
“I can’t believe you’re here!”
I laughed, hugging Katrina dearly as she shoved the backpack off my shoulders.
“Right, it’s so unbelievable that I’d show up to my fucking best friend’s wedding.”
“Hey, there she is.”
I grinned as I looked past my friend to Braun, her soon-to-be-husband.
“C’mere caveman,” I laughed as I broke away from her and held my arms out for a hug. Katrina’s fiancé was a seriously big and imposing guy, and he was kind of fierce if he wanted to be. But my friend had turned him into a teddy bear, and at least around her and her best friend in the world — i.e. me — he was a big softy.
But ever since Katrina had drunkenly let it slip that he’d thrown her over his shoulder and stormed off to bed with her when they’d met, I’d decided to call him caveman. It was a term of affection, he just didn’t know she’d spilled the beans about that time.
Braun swooped me into a huge hug that lifted me off the ground a little before he set me back down. I grinned as I looked around the living room — the part of the house that had been the tiny cabin Katrina and I used to come to but was now only a small part of a much bigger place.
Braun was pretty damn good with a hammer.
“Holy shit has this place gotten even bigger since the last time I was up here?”
I nodded at a new addition off the back, complete with huge beamed ceiling and a massive stone fireplace.
“Oh, yeah, that…” Katrina trailed off and shook her head. “Vlad helped with that part.”
I grinned at Braun. “Aww, are you making friends?”
He rolled his eyes and made a face at me before he turned to the kitchen.
“Drink?”
“No,” I said, probably a little too quickly before I cleared my throat. “I’m good, thanks.”
I turned to glance over the living room when my eyes landed on the diagram spread out across a big table in the corner. I gave Katrina a look.
“It’s a seating chart!”
“Have you always been this bubbly?”
“Hey, I’m getting married in two days. Can it.”
I laughed as she elbowed me in the ribs. And for a second, I actually wasn’t thinking about the wildness I’d just experienced barely two hours before. For a minute, my mind and my heart let me forget about what I’d walked away from and just be happy for my amazing friend.
But then, her fiancé came walking over, slid his arm around her waist, and kissed her softly on the neck. It was beautiful, and so damn tender, and instantly, I was right back to cursing myself for being such a freaking idiot.
Katrina’s excited tugging on my wrist brought me out of it.
“Here, c’mon, check this out.”
I groaned, shaking my head at the perfectly plotted out and numbered tables drawn on a big poster board, complete with a little pile of sticks on bases with cutouts of people’s heads on them.
“Okay, you are ridiculous,” I laughed, rolling my eyes at her. I looked at Braun. “You know, she was like this in college too. Total nerd about planning and organizing.”
He chuckled. “Yeah, well, good thing I’m madly in love with this nerd.”
“Better be,” my friend muttered back jokingly, grinning as she turned and leaned up to kiss him.
And again, my mind flashed back to the two men who’d taken every part of me — the two gorgeous strangers who I’d melted into. The ones who taken my body and made me feel things I’d never even known I could feel. And the ones who’d somehow found their way into my heart and held on tight.
I still wanted to tell myself it was just some random fling, but I knew it wasn’t. I knew it’d been a lot deeper than that.
I swallowed the lump in my throat and forced a smile.
“So, who goes where?”
Katrina groaned. “Still finalizing that. I’ve gotten most of the tough ones. My Aunt Beth will be here, and your old marine sergeant—” She nodded at Braun and then to where she was pointing. “Will go right here, next to her.”