More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
June 17 - June 19, 2022
Thayer Holmes put in a home gym in his basement for me. I think I’m going to cry.
“These are happy tears, because you are the kindest, most thoughtful human being.” He kisses the tip of my nose and it’s so surprisingly sweet and gentle coming from my lumberjack. “I want you to be happy, Salem.” I wet my lips with a slide of my tongue. “You make me happy.” He rubs his thumbs in gentle circles around my cheeks. “You make me happy too.” The words are a quiet confession on his lips, one that I savor.
I could kiss this man for the rest of my life and never get tired of it. I might be young, but I know this truth; his lips were made for mine.
“Hey,” he says softly, like he’s worried he’s offended me, “it’s okay to not know everything and have it all figured out. You’ll get there.” I bite my lip. “You think?” “Sometimes paths aren’t always clear, but as time goes by and you experience life, things start to make more sense.” I nod along. His words mean a lot to me, because it seems like most people expect me to have it figured out by now.
We ride mostly in silence, but it’s comfortable. I never realized how important that is, to find comfort in silence with someone else’s presence. It’s nice.
“I’m not bright like you, but I promise, when your days are dark, I’ll be your light.”
“You like me,” I say slowly with a smile. He shakes his head, fingers over his mouth to hide a growing smile. “I put a gym in my house for you and it takes stocking Diet Coke for you to realize I like you?” I press my lips together. “But do you like me? Like really like me, Thayer?” I reach over, rubbing his scruffy chin between my fingers. The light changes and he turns left. “Yeah, Sunshine, I like really like you.”
“He was just being a guy.” I don’t really believe that and from the look on his face he doesn’t either. “I’m raising a son,” he says firmly, “and if I ever heard him say that shit about a woman, I would know I failed him. Just being a guy. Boys will be boys, it’s a bullshit excuse, Salem. Don’t ever let some loser make you think otherwise.”
“You’re my girl,” he says it so surely, like it’s a fact already known, “and no one talks about my girl like that.”
It can be hard to see someone you love, love someone who you know isn’t good for them. But after a while you can only say so much before you have to sit back and let whatever happens happen.
“Mostly, I just don’t like the idea of you by yourself after a nightmare like that. You deserve to know you’re not alone, that someone’s beside you to fight your battles with you.” I think I might cry.
Thayer is the kind of person who does good things just because they’re the right things. He doesn’t seek out praise. That’s not the kind of person he is.
“I know,” he says, reaching for the dumbbells. “But I want to. It’s what you do when you care about someone.” “What exactly?” Chocolate brown eyes flicker over my body. “You find a way to let them know they aren’t alone.” His answer chokes me up, and I don’t say anything more. Turning the treadmill on, I run. But for the first time in … maybe, ever, I’m not running away from something. I’m running toward it.
“Your mom is strong,” Caleb says assuredly. “She’s a fighter.” “She is,” I agree, sniffling, “but it doesn’t matter how strong someone is, there are some fights you can’t win.”
He closes the distance between us, clasping my face between his large hands. I love when he holds me like that. Like I’m the entire world. I’ve never felt so special. Safe. Protected.
I look up at him through my lashes and I know, all the way down to the depths of my soul, that I love this man. I’ll never love someone else as much as I love him. In a short amount of time Thayer Holmes has stolen my heart, imprinted himself in my very DNA, until no one and nothing can ever take his place. He’s the only one for me.
“If there’s anything I can do, please let me know.” And I know he would. This man put in an entire home gym in his basement for me. He fixed my car. “Just be there for me.” It’s all I’ll ask for. It’s all I need.
“Everyone deserves to have someone who’s there for them. I want to be your someone.”
“Does that mean I’m your someone?” His brown eyes are warm, a swirl of so many things neither of us will say yet. “No, Salem.” He shakes his head slowly. Before I can feel the sting of pain, he says, “You’re my everything.”
“You feel so good,” he murmurs into the skin of my neck. “Fucking made for me, Salem.”
“I love you.” His warm brown eyes stare deeply into mine and I see the promise of a future there. One I think subconsciously I always thought I didn’t deserve. Picking up my hand, he laces our fingers together, kissing the top of my knuckles. “I love you, too.”
“I didn’t think I’d find it.” I give him a funny look. “Find what?” He traces the shape of my lips with his finger. “Something real. Before, I didn’t know what real, true love felt like. Just a weak imitation of it. You’ve given me this.”
I. Fucking. Hate. Blue. Blue is lifeless. It’s cold lips and stiff limbs. It’s the color of his death. I’ll never like the color again.
“Every good, happy part of me died with him. There’s nothing left for me to give you.” “I’ll take whatever I can get.” God, I sound desperate, but I don’t care. I might be young, but I know what we have is rare. It’s rare and beautiful and too precious to give up so easily.
I take the ring off my thumb finger, the one he gave me months ago at the flea market, and shove it against his chest. It falls to the sidewalk, and he looks down at it. “Goodbye, Thayer.” My voice cracks. For the first time in weeks, his face shows some sort of emotion other than confusion. He knows. I’m closing the door on us. Ending the chapter. We’re a period on the end of a sentence. Full stop.
I said goodbye to him, and I meant it. I don’t deserve to be half-loved by someone, shoved aside. He’s grieving, I know that, but I would wait—I’d help him through this if he only let me. The universe doesn’t want us to have an end, but a new beginning, because I’m still a little bit his.
