Total pages in book: 71
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 65643 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 328(@200wpm)___ 263(@250wpm)___ 219(@300wpm)
“Give me that.” I gently extracted it from her fingers and circled around to stand behind her. I could smell her shampoo or her perfume or maybe just her skin. Whatever it was, it was intoxicating. “Tell me what you remember.”
I was only sort of curious to know what twelve-year-old Destiny had thought of twenty-seven-year-old Garrett. Mostly I just wanted to hear her smoky voice, hotter than the flames.
“I remember your eyes,” Destiny said, holding the heavy mass of her hair off her neck while I secured the clasp. “They looked like the amber in my rock collection. Golden brown, like sunshine on resin. Now they remind me of whiskey, but I was twelve.”
“What else?” I leaned in, my forehead against the back of her head, and inhaled.
“I remember how tall you were. How self-assured.” Destiny reached back and ran one hand through my hair. Her nails were long and pleasantly sharp against my scalp. “I remember being jealous of Noemi, having someone like you to look out for them.”
“Your mom was no pushover.” I remembered that much. Noemi had yelled at that director once over how he treated Destiny on set, but it was her mom who had gone to the studio and threatened to pull Destiny if he didn’t shape up. I remembered because it was fucking ballsy. They didn’t have any gravitas yet. Destiny wasn’t a household name. The studio might have sided with the director, but as Noemi had told me in hushed, impressed tones, Rowena hadn’t cared at all.
“True, but she was no tall, good-looking guy who looked like he could handle anything and everything.” Destiny sounded almost wistful.
“Hey.” I caught her wrist and circled around to face her. “You have me now. To handle anything and everything.”
Her eyes heated, catching my meaning. “Prove it.”
“Happily.” I kissed her long and hard, my hand tracing the necklace around her throat then trailing lower. I would prove it tonight, and tomorrow, and for as long as she let me.
26
DESTINY
“Where are we going exactly?” I asked as we left the city behind. Though I loved it, I felt a band of tension release its grip on my chest as it grew smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror. I couldn’t wait to spend the next twenty-four hours with Garrett in a place that wasn’t a fishbowl.
“A little town called Smithfield outside of Sacramento,” Garrett said. He had one hand on the steering wheel, the other dangling out the window. It was colder today than it had been in a while, but it felt exhilarating whipping through the car.
“Where Noemi grew up,” I said, remembering. And then, “Where you grew up.”
He nodded and shot a look over at me. “My parents still live there.”
A bubble of sweetness expanded in my chest, so big it was almost painful. “You’re taking me to meet your parents?”
He snorted and rubbed his lower lip. “Yeah, I mean, we’ll see them. Unless…” he shot me another look. “Look, we don’t have to see them.”
“No, I want to.” I tried not to smile too widely. Garrett was going on now about the hiking we could do from his cabin, how private it was. How the town took pride in not giving a damn about celebrity. All I could think was, he’s taking me to meet his parents. I’d never met someone’s parents before. I’d never dated anyone seriously enough for it to come up. With Garrett, things had gone from zero to one hundred so fast I didn’t even know what we were. It hadn’t been long, but somehow it felt more serious and real than anything in my life. Like we’d been moving toward each other for years and now, finally, we’d reached where we were meant to be all along.
And he must think so too, because he was taking me to meet his parents.
It didn’t even occur to me to be nervous until we got to a cafe two hours later.
“Are you sure?” I asked, the nerves finally striking me. I never thought about the age difference between the two of us, but surely they would. Surely, they’d compare me to Noemi, even if they didn’t mean to.
“I’m sure,” Garrett said, all confidence. He reached into the back and came up with two hats. A gray beanie and a baseball hat with a gold crocodile stitched across the front. “Which one?”
“I–” I frowned, trying to picture meeting Garrett’s parents for the first time in either. “The baseball hat, I guess.” I wasn’t sure about the crocodile, but at least it had a brim I could pull low. Garrett seemed to think his hometown was some kind of invisibility cloak, but I wasn’t so sure.
Garrett dropped it on my head and, as if following my thoughts, tugged the brim down. “Cute,” he said. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I could hear the smile in his voice.