More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
“Fuck you. You don’t know me.” Dallas squeezed my shoulder tight, his entire body going tense—more tense. “Don’t fucking talk to her like that—”
“Say one more fucking word, and I’m gonna beat the shit out of you.”
GET THE MF
I was in love with him. Completely. It was pointless to want to think otherwise. And, as if he could read my mind, the arms around me tightened and he hugged me like… I wasn’t sure what. Like he’d missed me. Like he didn’t want to let me go, now or ever.
In the time it took me to ask myself why he was taking his jacket off, he crouched in front of me and drew one of my arms away from my chest, then slid my hand into the sleeve he’d just vacated, all while I watched him like a total idiot. He was putting his jacket on me.
sobbing
In a rare moment of my life, I didn’t know what to say.
as a fellow yapper this is me
“I like your cap,” I told him honestly. The emerald green made his hazel eyes pop like crazy. Plus, it was just fucking cute. “Did Miss Pearl make it for you?” “I made it,” he said with a twist to his mouth. “She taught me how.” The stupid smile that came over my face had me staring at him in awe. I even slapped my hand right over the left side of my chest. “Are you real?” Dallas tapped my chin. “I’ll knit you one, Peach.”
AND HE DID!
“She’s fine” came out of his mouth, he turned that tall, muscular body and parked himself in the tight space between both of us. He didn’t fit. Not at all. His elbow pretty much landed on my lap and most of his thigh and calf were pressed and aligned to my matching body parts. I shifted to my left an inch and the length of his leg followed me, his elbow staying exactly where it was. What the hell was happening? “How’s it going, Kev?” Dallas asked the dad, still smothering me but somehow his attention elsewhere.
LOL fuck off KEV
The first one, in small, neat handwriting that was crossed out with hard dashes across the letters, like he’d changed his mind, had said: YOU ARE THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE.
dallas walked the man that you are.
I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT YOU. I can’t live without you.
he can’t live without her.
He wasn’t… there was no way…. What exactly was it that I had told him and Trip in my kitchen during Josh’s sleepover what felt like forever ago?
YES WAY
Don’t put me into that position, because I know she”—he tipped his head toward me—“only bites when she has to, and I will always take her side. Are we clear on that?”
“I’m sure, baby.”
i’m a PUDDLE
“Busy?” he asked, smiling a little and coming to a stand. “Not for you.” Why did I say that and why was my heart beating so fast in my chest?
He winked. He winked right at me. He had never done that before.
hehehehheh
“Good. Make me your six o’clock from now on. Any day you want, I’ll make it work.” My index finger hovered over the mouse for a moment and I held my breath. There was something about this that felt different. Heavy. “For how long?” I asked slowly. “For as long as that calendar will let you.”
But before I could say anything else, a big, warm hand slipped into mine; the long fingers meshing through my smaller ones, and I lost my train of thought in less than a second.
I watched him shove his key into the lock and turn it, pulling the door open, and without meeting my eyes, he grabbed me by the hips and lifted me in—so quick I didn’t even have time to register his action until it was over.
“Are you okay?” I asked, keeping my hand where it was even as he reversed out of the short driveway, his chin over his shoulder as he looked out the back window.
The hand he had closest to the window went up to scrub at his short hair. “Because you worried me! You think I want something to happen to you?
“Maybe you can take care of yourself, but have you thought for one single fucking second that maybe somebody else might want to take care of you too?”
“Now that you mention it, I seem to remember you telling me to quit being a pussy.” “That was a completely different situation, you idiot.” “How?” “You were married!” She thought about it for a second before huffing. “Whatever. Eat shit. What I want to know is what are you going to do about it?”
HAHHAHAHA I LOVE THEM
Take what I want. I didn’t have to figure out what it was that I wanted. I knew what it was. Exactly what it was. And that was Dallas.
“I don’t mind picking up Lou.” There was a pause and he blinked those beautiful eyes. His voice was hesitant. “Unless you don’t want me to?” Didn’t want him to? What a dumbass. I smiled at him, trying to tell him with my eyes that I wanted him to love me back.
“Are you leaving?” “Not yet.” He took another step. “I’ve missed seeing you.” He missed me?
But instead of telling him I wasn’t sure where his mind was at or what he wanted from me or telling him that I thought he’d hung the Milky Way, all I did was nod.
HUNG THE MILKY WAY🥲
Dallas nodded and took a step forward as I turned my back on him. I managed to take maybe a couple of steps before two arms wrapped around my shoulders from behind in a hug that lasted all of a squeeze and what I could only assume was a kiss to the back of my head. I stood there and took it.
“Actually, I think he’s going to marry me one day.”
“How can I miss you so much when I just saw you yesterday?”
YEARNER
“But I wouldn’t use ‘little’ to describe what I feel for you, Diana. I think you know that already.” It was my turn to blink. I squeezed our palms together. “So I’m not imagining it?” I pretty much whispered. “No, baby, you’re not.” Dallas squeezed my fingers between his.
Dallas. What do you want from me?” “Everything.”
“I want you. I want your smile. Your hugs. Your love. I want your happiness.” He paused. “Every single thing.”
I’D FCKING CRUMBLE
Life is so fucking short, Peach, and I’m too old to not know and go for what I want. And you know what I want. What I’ve wanted. For a long, long time.” He paused. “You.”
“The only team I’m ever going to worry about is the best one. I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”
Everything about you makes me smile. -Uncle Fester.
Really. I love you. Love, Professor Xavier Before He Lost His Hair
In all the ways that matter, you can be my #1 – (infinity). Deal? Love always, your poor bastard I love you. —Your born-again virgin Catholic convert, Dallas
I swallowed the knot in my throat as Dallas leaned forward and kissed my cheek for one brief moment that would be etched into my memory forever
“He looks out the window to check on you every night. I tell him to call you and quit being a stalker, but he thinks I’m going to listen in on his conversations.” She huffed. “I have better things to do with my time.”
“I gave it to you a long time ago, Diana. In little pieces and then bigger pieces, and the next thing I knew, I didn’t have anything left in me, so I hope it’s enough.”
It isn’t every day you look at your friend and two kids and know this is where you were supposed to be. Do you believe me?”
“I always thought you looked like mine, but you sure do fucking feel like you’re mine, too,”
Every time his hands touched me, it was like a sentence was being spoken. And I hoped that every time I set my hands on him, he could feel every single thing I thought of him, everything I felt for him.
Because no one else was as kind or selfless, as giving or as patient, as loving in all the little and the big ways, as he was. I’d never really known what I wanted most of my life, but this—him—was it.
“You know that hug of yours started all of this.” What? “What do you mean?” He moved his hand in a circle on my thigh, slowly kneading. “I saw you outside your house a few weeks after you moved in. The Larsens must have been dropping the kids off because you were all outside. You’d been standing on the deck waiting for them, and Josh came out of their car. When he came up to you, he wasn’t even paying attention, but you hugged him with this huge smile on your face. You were laughing. I don’t know what you told him, but then he started hugging you back and you shook him until he finally laughed
...more
“I’m not rich and I’m not good-looking, but I could make you happy. We could make our own patched-up family.”
“why friend what lovely arms you have”
This man. This man was going to stitch me together with industrial strength thread. How? How could I live a day without him? A week, a month, a lifetime?
“Diana, I love you, and every bone in my body tells me that I’m gonna love you every day of my life, even when we want to kill each other.”
“While I still have breath in my body, I won’t go anywhere, Peach.”
You’re right. You’re right,” she finally admitted. “I know I’m always right.”
“Not everyone can marry a man like your cousin, I understand.”
lol love u sal
