All The Letters I’ve Ever Read Read online

  Copyright © 2019 Ace Gray

  Except the original material written by the author, all songs, song lyrics, and song titles contained in this book are the property of the respective songwriters and copyright holders. The author concedes to the trademarked status and trademark owners of the products mentioned in this fiction novel and recognizes that they have been used without permission. The use and publication of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead or events is entirely coincidental

  Cover Design by Book Cover Kingdom

  Cover Photography by Courtney Hellen Photography

  Editing by Payne Proof

  Interior Design/Formatting by Champagne Book Design

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Part Two

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four

  Forty-Five

  Forty-Six

  Forty-Seven

  Forty-Eight

  Part Three

  Forty-Nine

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Follow Ace

  To anyone who has picked up the pieces and moved forward.

  And to my readers for being the reason I picked up the pieces and moved forward.

  Three years ago, a girl entered my life that was a little…different. I don’t mean in some weird way, but rather in an incredible way. She saw me when no one else really did. She saw me and she never asked me to be anything else but me. A first.

  I did every single thing I possibly could to screw it up. Seriously everything. But at this point, I need her and I’m not ashamed to admit it.

  I’m not a writer, but if Mina McLennan needs my words, she’s going to get the best ones that I have. Specially when I ask her to marry me.

  Mina,

  I’ve sat here staring at paper for three days and I have no idea what to say. I don’t know how you pour your heart out onto a page, I can barely manage a sentence.

  But I want to.

  I want to tell you how badly I screwed up with Jenna. She will forever be my mistake. Eight years of on-again and off-again will only ever feel like the sixty seconds in which she kissed me, and I lost you. I’m sorry for that. I’m looking for a word more inclusive and more apologetic than sorry. I’m looking for some way I might earn your forgiveness even though I don’t deserve it.

  I’ve never deserved you.

  Each time you smiled at me from the brewhouse doorway, each time you came baring gifts, each time you hugged me over your car console, I knew it. I knew it but I loved you anyway. There was no way to stop that feeling. I promise I tried. So many times.

  I’m sorry you were caught in the crosshairs of that narrative too. I didn’t mean for that to happen.

  I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.

  If I were a normal guy, I would have told you then. I wouldn’t have waited two months to tell you now but I’m bad at all of that. Regardless, I love you Mina McLennan. I see a future with you. And that doesn’t mean I’m promising you the moon and all the stars of your favorite constellation. It just means that I want to wake up with you, and when I do, I want you to know that I choose to be with you.

  It’s that simple.

  I choose you.

  I was wrong before, to ask you to marry me when you were pissed. What can I say, I was scared. I knew I was losing you and I knew why. I knew I deserved that fate and all I wanted was to hold on.

  That doesn’t mean that I didn’t really want it. Really want you. I did.

  I do.

  And I’ll say that again if you ever give me a chance. In front of our family, our friends, a judge. I’ll say it to anyone that will listen. I’ll tell them that your bottom lip is more plump than your top, that your left eye is more gold than your right. I’ll tell them that your fingers fit laced perfectly into mine. That you see the good in everyone, even the quiet boy with Croakies in the corner.

  I’ll tell them that you saw me.

  That you still do and that every day I try to be that man. The one worthy of being seen through your eyes the way only you see the world.

  I’m not sure I ever will be, but will you give me the chance to try?

  I have no reason to hope, no reason to believe you will, but I have to ask you, will you marry me?

  Be my wife, Mina. Not because it’s the way happily ever after is supposed to go but because when I think about grabbing my coffee mug and heading to work ten years from now, I want to know I’m leaving you in bed. I’m carrying your mug to the brewhouse. I want to know that my coffee cup was the first real thing my future wife gave me.

  I want to know that my heart was the only thing she ever took.

  Waiting sucks. Normally I have patience in spades. I can wait for brunch, for backordered items, for beer to brew without flinching. I don’t mind getting lost in my own thoughts or focusing on the fact that I’m lucky to have the time to wait at all. But waiting for Mina McLennan sucks.

  First, I had to wait for her to come around. Then for her to let me kiss her without slapping me. Then to take it further. Then for her to hear me out. And again, to forgive me.

  Now I have to wait for an answer.

  And I’m not an idiot. The only answer I deserve is no. After hurting her years ago, and again just days ago, I deserve a big, fat rejection. I didn’t mean to hurt her as bad as I did before—I was going numb with my own pain and didn’t realize. I definitely didn’t mean to hurt her a few days ago—it really was just a biochemical and muscle memory reaction to kiss my ex. But what I deserve and what I want are two very different things.

  So I’m waiting.

  Even though it fucking sucks.

  Will you marry me?

  My words hang between us. Unanswered. I asked her in my letter then I asked her again here, this afternoon, on my stairs. I slid the ring on her finger myself, and the only answer I’ve got is that she isn’t taking it off.

  I try and think about her skin, how it’s not buttery soft or callused, it’s just hers. I think about how her hand fits in mine and I’ll want to hold it as long as I’m allowed. For a s
econd I think about how my ring looks so good on her finger but then I stop myself. If she doesn’t say yes, it won’t stay there.

  Should I say it again? Should I tell her all the reasons that I love her? Should I tell her sorry again?

  I look over and her eyes are brighter gold now with sunset looming, right still brighter than left. All the crazy beautiful colors blur together, and I just see the shine of gold from above highlighting her priceless shade. Her eyelashes, usually so long and featherlight, look a little clumped together like she’s been crying. Her pale pink lips hold the slightest stain from red wine. She’s never been more beautiful.

  That’s what I’ve always loved about her. Even when she’s lying, her face betrays her. It’s always told me that she loves me.

  “You’re not going to badger me into saying yes?” She finally breaks the silence.

  “No.” I smile and shake my head a little. “No, I want you to choose me. I choose you. Despite everything, there is no other woman on earth I want to be with. I don’t know how else to say it.”

  “You just want me to say it? That simple.” She turns to look me over, and I can’t help but hide from that gaze. That gaze of hers that sees all of me.

  “I want you to say yes.” I can only hold a small smile for a minute before it falls, and I start studying the sky again.

  This isn’t the way a proposal should go. I’m not an expert but I’m pretty sure we should be kissing by now. I blow out a deep breath as my forearms slide onto my knees and sag between my shoulders.

  “I don’t want to hurt you anymore.” She brushes her knuckles against the back of my hand.

  “Saying no is going to sting.” I close my eyes and cherish what might be one of my last real moments with her. I deserve that fate after all, I deserve to lose her, and she’s letting me down as softly as she possibly can.

  “Then I won’t,” she says as she hooks her pointer into my pinky.

  “Is that a yes?” I can’t help that hope fluttering in my chest.

  “I guess it is,” she whispers.

  That’s basically a yes and I am done waiting…for anything when it comes to Mina. I shove my hand into her hair and pull her lips back to mine. Back to where they should have been for the past twelve days. We’ve said too many words, made things far too complicated, when I could just be kissing her.

  Kissing my fiancée.

  My fingers find hers and lace between them as I move closer. Her knees part the slightest bit to let me in and I find it incredibly sexy. She’s incredibly sexy. What we’re about to do…

  I reach around her hip and pull her onto my lap. Her arms fall around my neck and her hair flops from where I clawed in.

  “You mean it?” I pull back and rest my forehead to hers.

  “Yeah.” She smiles as she bends one elbow and reaches into my hair. “I guess I do.”

  I guess I do probably wouldn’t be enough for most people but it’s enough for me. As is seeing my ring on her hand in the tangle of my sheets. I can’t help but smile. It’s not my natural state but it happens more and more these days with Mina in my life again.

  We got too close this time. Too close to losing each other for good.

  Three years ago, Mina became a friend. She went from just some girl at work to the person I couldn’t wait to see every day. Sunrise didn’t start the day, she did. With the coffee and pastries that she brought. With her dirty jokes and half smiles.

  But she was engaged. And not to me.

  I thought distancing myself from her, from our friendship was the right thing to do. I thought I was acting honorably. And at first it was, I was. She stopped talking to me. The reconciliation texts never came. I was grateful for a while because I didn’t feel the guilt that came with each interaction and everything that bloomed and sparked with them.

  But then she moved. And we didn’t speak. I didn’t say goodbye.

  I thought that I’d stop thinking about her eventually. That I wouldn’t reach for my phone with her in mind to text. That little things would stop reminding me of her. That she’d fade.

  But I was wrong about that too.

  Then life became stifling. It wasn’t just that she was gone, it was a whole myriad of things. My job, my family, the toxic char of people that I found myself mixed with. The only source of comfort that seemed to exist in the entirety of the world was Mina McLennan.

  But she was gone.

  And enough time had passed that I couldn’t really message her. Nothing I could say would fix it. Or rather would say. Because I wasn’t going to spill my guts. Not really. Not like she would need to fix it. For all I knew, she was still engaged—married even—so there was no fixing us anyway.

  So I moved. It wasn’t really to find her, just to find some piece of the happiness that I’d had with her. The only place I could think of was Pyramid Peak, Colorado. She’d talked about the small, sleepy town like it was magic, and though I don’t believe in nonsense like that, I told myself I’d take the chance. The worst that would happen was a new town with some breathing room.

  The best thing that could happen…

  I lift my hand and cup her cheek. My thumb runs along her cheekbone.

  “Hi,” she says groggily as her eyes flutter open and close in the soft light.

  “Hi,” I answer as I move across my pillow to kiss her.

  The way her body bows toward me is intoxicating. Her body always does things like that. Small things that show she wants me more than any other woman I’ve been with. It’s not filthy or porn stuff, it’s little human things. Little Mina things. And it’s heady to feel like a king.

  “Still my fiancée?” I ask, my lips brushing against hers.

  “Yes.”

  Good. That’s all the confirmation I need that this is going to work. This is going to last. A prospect which excites me to no end.

  I shimmy in between her legs and use my hips to pin hers to the bed. My hand is still on her cheek, but I use my elbow to pin her forearm to the bed.

  “Is this our relationship now? Nothing but sex?” she asks as her smile spreads.

  “You’re the dirty one, as if you care.” I arch my eyebrow and shoot her a smarmy look as I notch myself in between her thighs.

  I’d press in but I’ve learned how she likes it. Studied her in the smallest ways. So I bend down to her naked breasts and lick. She groans as soon as my mouth closes around her. Her body presses up before falling in surrender back down to the bed.

  The groan mingled with a sigh is sign one that she’s pleased.

  Sign two comes a second later when she shoves her hands into my hair. I love it when she does that, she scratches my scalp the smallest bit, she sets the tightest strands of my stupid man-bun free. I know my hair’s too long, left unkept because I’m lazy more than anything. She knows that too. But the best part is she’s never once asked me to cut it. Even though she told me that she thinks my driver’s license picture—complete with shorter hair—is hot. Mina likes to pull me in.

  I keep moving the way she told me the first night I touched her body. Teasing and tormenting her breasts. What torture right? A girl that begs a guy to play with her breasts? Twist my arm…

  Her cleavage always was and always will be one of my favorite features.

  She moans a moment later before sign number three. Her hands leave my hair and dig into my shoulder blades. I shiver. I do every time. She clings to my body like it’s the only thing keeping her afloat. Being that lifeline alone pushes me further toward the edge.

  “James,” she whispers my name.

  That is sign number four. One I don’t always get but one that means she’s close. My name, breathed on her lips, is my number one. It’s my undoing.

  “I’m not even inside…” My head falls to her chest.

  “What are you waiting for?”

  “Condom.” I inwardly groan when I say it. I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to leave our bed.

  “Who cares?” Her fingers flex into m
y shoulder blades.

  “What?” I pull back and look at her.

  “You’re mine. You’re going to be my husband. I think…I mean…we could…? But only if you want…”

  Shit. She’s telling me that I don’t need to get up or get out from under the covers. Holy shit to all the other things she’s telling me.

  I reach between her thighs and guide myself into her.

  Fuck.

  I don’t swear tons—something that Mina has given me a hard time for—but her, being with her, makes me a goddamned sailor. The sensation is different. Different good. Different really fucking good. I whimper as I press in. Yes, whimper.

  No one deserves to feel this good on a Tuesday morning.

  Her body weaves around mine and I lower myself and we start moving against each other. With each other. Fuck if I know. I just know I love her. I love being with her. Nothing feels this good for my body or mind. It’s enough to forget one and let the other take over completely.

  I remember to slide my hand between us, to touch her. She cries out into my ear and her fingers dig in.

  There’s a limit to how long I can keep going. She just feels too good. The over and over and over again feels too good. My head falls to the curve of her neck, my favorite spot, my home. I bite the skin beneath my lips and Mina moans. She moans my name.

  My whole body tenses a heartbeat before I lose it. Lose everything to her. To my fiancée.

  I stay rigid for a moment before melting into her. Sign number five that my fiancée, my future wife, is pleased is the slow gentle rub of her hands across my back.

  “Did you…?” I ask between my gasping breath.

  “Stop asking.” She smiles.

  “I’m gonna ask.” I prop myself up on my elbow.

  “Why? All you need to know is that I enjoyed myself. Immensely. Ten out of ten, would recommend, except that I tend to get jealous so recommending will go something like—”

  “Mina,” I groan. “I wanna know if you came.”

  “And I’m telling you it doesn’t matter.”

  “It matters to me.” I slide out of her and sit back, baring her body to the morning air.