Page 25

Then she picked up my book as if she couldn’t wait another second to get lost in the pages. She instantly forgot I was standing there.

I may not have written anything in over a year, but there was still at least one person hungry for my words. Knowing that gave me an unexpected surge of confidence as I walked back upstairs to get my stuff.

And when Noah pulled up outside four hours after he dropped me off, there was an extra bounce in my step when I went to meet him near the passenger door he’d just pulled open for me.

“You had a good day, Red?”

I beamed at the nickname and the familiarity we already seemed to have with each other, telling myself not to obsess over the future and take everything for what it was right now. There was no need in worrying about a future I wasn’t even sure existed. This was exactly where I needed to be today and that was all that mattered.

Reaching for my seatbelt, I sighed, “The best I’ve had in a while.”

I swore I wanted to be aloof and mysterious, but I’d never quite mastered the art of shutting the fuck up.

And that problem only got worse in True’s presence.

If you looked up the word “rambling” in the dictionary, there would be a picture of me, grinning like a fool.

Because why the hell had I just turned a casual twenty minute drive into honesty hour?

I didn’t know why I felt so comfortable around her. It had been like that since day one. She still made me nervous as hell, but not nervous like I didn’t trust her. Nervous like she was fine as hell and it took everything in me to focus when she was in my presence.

Obviously, I was getting over that. There was a budding sense of familiarity with her. I didn’t doubt that seeing her every day had accelerated that sense of closeness.

I liked her. And I wanted her to know me.

Even if it came out as a rambling trauma dump while she did her makeup in my passenger seat.

The timing was wild, and I still couldn’t bring myself to regret opening up to her.

I should probably talk to my therapist about that.

If True cared about me revealing parts of myself I usually kept hidden, it never showed on her face. She listened without judging and didn’t interrupt me. The only other person who listened to me that intently was Greyson and I’d always thought he was the exception—not the standard.

Once she was in the bookstore, I drove the next block over and parked my truck in a parking space behind the purple BMW I knew belonged to Romeo Wilde, the owner of Soulstice Apothecary.

With a final glance at the makeup bag True left in my passenger seat, I hopped out the truck and walked inside the herbal shop my sister worked at.

“Welcome to Soulstice, my name is Lot—” Her eyes swelled and she was around the counter before I could make it three feet inside the door. My sister wrapped me in a hug, letting her head rest against my torso while she asked, “Noah. What are you doing in town?”

With a laugh, I pulled away from her. “You make it sound like I live outta town, Lottie.”

She scrunched her nose. “You kinda do. So like I said, what are you doing here?”

“I need to pick up some lumber from Cal’s store and borrow his table saw.”

She smiled at the mention of her husband, but her brow rose as she waited for me to give her more details. “Lumber for what?”

“I’m working on a project for my neighbor.”

Her brows danced on her forehead then she pursed her lips. “Hmm. Tell me more.”

“She’s a writer and she doesn’t have a desk. So I want to build her one.”

“A writer, huh?” Lottie stared at me like she was trying to see through me and that shit always made my skin crawl.

“Yea. Awriter, Lottie.”

“Be careful.”