Page 14 of Broken: Taylor

Chapter 5

Allison returnedand looked at his barely touched pizza. “Not hungry?”

“I shouldn’t really eat all this. But the one slice I had was great.” He tried his best not to look to where Felicia sat with another woman whom he recognized as her cousin.

Had she come to check up on him? Probably not. She had relatives in Laurel Creek and came often.

The town was too damn small.

Allison had obviously pondered what she’d said while gone from the table. “Look forget everything. We don’t have to talk about what happened. It’s all right. The more I think about it, the more I realize what a mistake it was to think something could develop between us.”

She emphasized the words with hand gestures and for a moment he was lost in the bounce of her curls and jingling of bracelets.

Although Felicia was deep in conversation, she kept glancing over. It was obvious she was trying to figure out the situation. Not because of jealousy, but more to size Allison up and decide if she was good enough for him.

They finished the rest of their meal. Their conversation flowed easily, without any more references to what had transpired between them the day before.

Allison even made him laugh several times with stories of contrary customers. He had to admit, she was a delight in more ways than one. Spending time with her this evening almost made him forget the pain and issues from his injuries.

Although he pictured what a relationship would be like with her, it seemed each time a picture of him moaning through the night and barely able to function every morning ruined any illusion. So yeah, in many ways he was an idiot for not pursuing this woman. At the same time, the stark reality was she deserved much more. A whole man.

The boxed up pizza leftovers between them a was sign the meal had definitely ended.

“Thank you for dinner,” Allison said stretching.

He slid out of the booth and shrugged on his jacket. While she put her own overcoat on, he took the pizza boxes. “I’ll walk you home.”

Once outside on the sidewalk, Allison took the top box. Their gazes met for a moment before she looked away first. “Have a good night Taylor. I’ll see you around.”

Before he could say anything, she pressed a kiss to his cheek.

“Look Allison...”

She shook her head. “Nope. Don’t say anything. Like I said, I get it.”

A slight drizzle started, the weather adding to the fast descent of his mood as Allison crossed the street and went into her place. He stood planted to the spot until the light upstairs came on.

* * *

The loud exaggeratedgrunt was meant to irritate. Taylor glared at Tobias, who placed the free weights into place and then posed like a super hero. “What do you think? I could be Captain America, right?”

“How about Captain Moron?” Taylor pushed up the next five repetitions ignoring Tobias, who obviously had something to say by the way he hovered.

Taylor finally placed the bar back on the stand and remained laying on the bench to wait on whatever Tobias had to say.

“You okay Cuz?”

“Yep. You?”

“Aren’t you supposed to go to Wyoming? To get stuff?”

In this family, not only was it impossible to keep secrets, but they also interfered when one decided to ignore things.

“Yep.”

“Janice called Mom. She’s pretty angry. Said you weren’t answering her calls.”

“My phone was lost for a couple of days. I don’t know what the damn hurry is.” He gave up and sat. Placing his hands on his thighs, he bent forward and let out a long breath.