The Things We Leave Unfinished Yarros, Rebecca (reading like a writer .TXT) 📖

house without knocking, but Georgia had insisted, since we’d started spending our afternoons together last week in what she called Stanton University.

“Thank God, because I’m famished,” she called out from the office.

I walked through the open side of the French doors and stopped short. Georgia sat on the floor in front of her great-grandmother’s desk, surrounded by photo albums and boxes. She’d even moved the large wingback chairs out of the way to make room.

“Wow.”

She looked up at me and offered an enthusiastic smile. Damn. Just like that, my mind wasn’t on her great-grandmother or the book I’d staked my career on. It was on Georgia, plain and simple.

Something had changed between us the day we’d gone rock-climbing. Not only did it feel like we were actually on the same team, but there was now a heightened awareness, as if someone had started a countdown. I couldn’t have written the sexual tension any better. Every simple touch between us since then was measured, careful, as if we were matches in the middle of a fireworks cache, knowing too much friction would set the whole place ablaze.

“Want to picnic?” she asked, gesturing to a vaguely open bit of floor at her side.

“I’m game if you are.” I picked my way across the spread of memories to claim the spot at her side.

“Sorry,” she said with a sheepish cringe, her wide-neck sweatshirt slipping off her shoulder to reveal a lilac bra strap. “I was looking for that one picture I told you about from Middle Wallop and got kind of lost in this.”

“Don’t apologize.” Not only did she look better than our lunches, she’d unlocked a veritable treasure trove of family history and laid it bare for me.

If that didn’t say opening up, I wasn’t sure what else could. We’d come a long way from her hanging up on me. Everything about the woman next to me was soft, from the sweep of her hair into that knot on her head, to her bare, shorts-clad, mile-long legs crossed beneath her. There was nothing icy about her.

“Once I found the pictures, I couldn’t help myself.” She smiled down at the open photo album on her lap as I took the boxes of takeout from the bag.

“No tomato,” I said, handing hers over. I couldn’t remember if my last girlfriend liked her coffee sweet or black, yet here I was, committing everything about Georgia Stanton to memory without even trying. I had it bad.

“Thank you,” she replied with a smile, taking the box before pointing up to the desk behind us. “Iced tea, unsweetened.”

“Thanks.” Guess I wasn’t the only one committing the details to memory.

“I still think you’re a weirdo for drinking it without sugar, but whatever floats your boat.” She shrugged and flipped a page in the album.

“That you?” I brushed off her commentary and leaned over her shoulder slightly. Whether it was her shampoo or perfume, the light citrus scent I breathed in went straight to my head, along with other body parts I needed under firm control around Georgia.

“How can you tell?” She shot me a quizzical look. “You can’t even see my face.”

“I recognize Scarlett, and I highly doubt there was any other little girl dressed up as a princess Darth Vader.” Scarlett’s smile was proud, just like it was in every picture I saw of her and Georgia together.

“Fair point,” Georgia admitted. “Guess I was feeling a little dark side that year.”

“How old were you?”

“Seven.” Her brow furrowed. “Mom had come to visit before marrying husband number two, if I remember correctly.”

“How many husbands has she had?” It wasn’t that I was judging, as much as the look on Georgia’s face had me more than curious.

“Five marriages, four husbands.” She flipped the page. “She married number three twice, but I think they’re getting divorced, since she’s currently back with number four. I honestly don’t bother keeping track anymore.”

It took a second to connect those dots.

“Anyway, you need the pictures from the forties, and these are mostly just me—” She moved to shut the album.

“I’d love to see them.” Anything to help me understand her better.

She looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

“I mean, Scarlett’s in them, too, right?” Weak.

“True. Okay. We can move to the older stuff next. Don’t let it get cold.” She motioned to the burger I had in front of me.

We ate and flipped through the album. Page after page was filled with pictures of Georgia’s childhood, and though some of the pictures included Hazel or Scarlett, it was years—and my entire lunch—before Ava appeared again. Georgia looked like a happy child for the most part—huge smiles in the garden, the meadow, out by the creek. Book signings in Paris and Rome—

“No London?” I asked, turning the page back to make sure I hadn’t missed one. Nope, just Scarlett and Georgia—who was missing two front teeth—at the Colosseum.

“She never stepped foot in England again,” Georgia said softly. “This was the last book tour, too. She wrote for another ten years, though. Swore it kept her from going senile. What about you?”

“Me? Am I at risk for going senile?” My eyebrows shot up. “How old do you think I am?”

She laughed. “I know you’re thirty-one. I meant, do you think you’ll write until you’re ninety?” she rephrased, elbowing me gently.

“Oh.” I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to imagine a time I wouldn’t write. “I’ll probably write until I’m dead. Whether I choose to publish it or not is a different subject.” Writing a book and going through the publishing process were two completely different beasts.

“I get that.” As someone raised in the industry, she undoubtedly did.

Another page, another picture, another year. Georgia’s smile was blindingly bright as she stood in front of a birthday cake—twelve, going by the decorations—with Ava at her side.

In the next picture, which looked to be a few weeks later, the light was gone from Georgia’s eyes.

“You’re not going to ask why my mother didn’t raise me?” She peered at