Total pages in book: 199
Estimated words: 200280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1001(@200wpm)___ 801(@250wpm)___ 668(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200280 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1001(@200wpm)___ 801(@250wpm)___ 668(@300wpm)
Whatever the case, he stayed.
In fact, he’s still here. A couple of hours later.
And things have happened.
Like for example, I cooked dinner.
Something which, like baking, I taught myself – because no one really cooks where I come from; we’ve got people for that – and again something that I never told Ledger. But I figured that I was going to cook for myself anyway, plus he already knows about my baking, so what’s one more secret.
Then after dinner I watched, surreptitiously, as he did Halo’s bedtime routine. While I should’ve been in the kitchen, doing the dishes and cleaning up.
I watched him as he carefully bathed her, his long fingers all sudsy and gentle. I watched him give her shampoo-slick hair a cool mohawk that his Little Berry absolutely loved and found totally hilarious. Then he blew bubbles and played with her duckie and chuckled and laughed, something he very rarely does, looking all kinds of beautiful.
Once the bath was done, he patted her dry, again all tenderly, and got her into her diaper and pajamas. And then he fed her as he rocked her and paced around the room. At this point, usually Callie and I, we’d read her a story, but he didn’t need to do that. Because not only had she been half-asleep before her bedtime routine, but him playing with her and talking to her — in his coo-ey voice — almost put her to sleep.
That was my last straw though.
Hearing his coo-ey voice again.
Something that I couldn’t have imagined him capable of doing in a million years. And like everything else that I did in our one-sided love story, I imagined this a lot too.
Him with a baby.
Our baby.
So that was when I fled and went back to the kitchen.
Which is where I am right now.
Doing the dishes.
Scrub. Rinse. Repeat.
Until I feel something. First, in the air that makes goosebumps wake up on my arms. And then half a second later, a tingling in the back of my neck. By the time I whirl around, which takes even less than half a second, my entire body is covered in goosebumps and tingles.
Because he’s here.
So close.
“What are you doing?” I ask, looking into his dark eyes that seem darker. In response he moves closer to me and I can’t stop my gasp as his face, his lips come very, very close to me, seemingly heading toward my lips. “Oh my God, what…”
But then he passes me by and reaches with his arm, shutting off the water.
Oh.
Okay.
No. Actually, not okay.
So when he moves back and props his hips against the island, his arms folded across his chest, I say, as sternly as I can, “I think I’ve asked you to respect my personal space before.”
He watches me for a few seconds, my flushed cheeks, my heaving chest. “And I would if you’d respected mine.”
“I’ve never –”
“Not my personal space, no. But my privacy.”
“That –"
“Which I’m sure falls in the same category as respecting someone’s personal space.”
Shit.
Shit.
Of course he knew. Of course he knew that I was watching him.
It’s uncanny. The way he knows.
Thirteen months ago, I would’ve taken it as a sign and thought that he’s so attuned to me and what I do. But I guess the truth is that I’m just not good at stalking at all.
I press my hips to the counter. “I was checking to make sure that Halo was okay.”
“Sure.”
“She’s my responsibility tonight. You’ve already fed her cupcakes and peaches. So I had to make sure you weren’t breaking any other rules made by your sister.”
All true.
He did give her a few pieces of my cupcakes and cut-up peaches. I think I’m going to have to tell Callie when she comes back. That her brother is a total rebel and her husband as well. I have no shame in being the tattletale in this case.
His biceps bunch and flex as he shifts on his feet. “My sister is crazy, as I’ve already mentioned before. And it’s not my fault that your cupcakes are fucking delicious and she kept wanting more.”
“That’s so…” Then, “My c-cupcakes are delicious?”
His eyes bore into mine. “I ate five in a row. You were there for that, weren’t you?”
“Four,” I remind him like it’s so important. “You ate four.”
“Only because you took ’em away.”
“You got them back though. Later.”
“Of course I did,” he says. “I told you they were mine.”
His.
God, will he ever stop sounding so possessive?
It makes me almost glad that we were never meant to be. If he’s so crazy possessive now, when I’m nothing more to him than an object, imagine how possessive he’d be if we ever got together.
So in a way it all worked out I guess.
Yeah, right, Tempest.
Whatever.
The point is that he did manage to get his hands on the cupcakes after we had dinner and he polished off the majority of them, along with feeding Halo here and there. And yes, it did fill me with pleasure and pride and I did think that he may have liked them. Or at least not completely hated them.