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I waved my hand numbly in the air. “Yeah, no. It’s… I need to get some sleep anyway. Big day tomorrow.”
You called me beautiful. Inside and out. I twisted my tongue between my teeth to keep from saying it out loud like an accusation.
He glanced at me. This time the unspoken words between us were arrows with poisoned tips. “Finn…”
I cleared my throat and plastered on my media smile. “No, it’s cool. Thanks for the beej, Dec. I really needed that. Kept me from taking Kix up on his offer. He’s fucking good at it but then wants to stick around and talk my damned ear off. No, thanks.”
Declan’s nostrils flared as if he smelled the lie for what it was, a desperate attempt to downplay how much this had meant to me.
“Happy to be of service,” he bit out before standing up and grabbing the pieces of his uniform.
I clenched my fingers into tight fists in the bedding until my knuckles turned white. All I had to do was hold it together for three more minutes until he bolted out of there.
He shoved his legs into his uniform pants and yanked them up, closing them with quick, efficient movements. Sheriff Declan Stone, quick and efficient even in the way he hooks up with men.
Great.
After he left the bedroom to search for his shirts, I rubbed my face in my hands and muttered a curse. But then he came back for one last word.
“Don’t fucking hook up with that jackass,” he warned, pointing his finger at me. “You hear me? Don’t do it.”
I felt myself gawp at his surprising command, but before I could shake myself out of my shock enough to tell him he wasn’t the boss of me, he’d stormed out and slammed the door to the chalet with one last bossy statement about making sure I locked it behind him.
For some reason, that last bit made me laugh. Even when he was a total controlling asshole, he cared about the safety of the people around him.
Fucking Christ.
At least the laughing kept me from crying like a damned baby.
The following day, I woke up with a newfound desire to stop letting other people’s image of me define my own. Over the course of a long, hot shower, I reminded myself I wasn’t the spoiled young celebrity Declan thought I was. I also wasn’t the experienced stuntman Nolan was trying to convince everyone I was. And I wasn’t the social player Kix wanted me to be. Most importantly, I wasn’t the blockbuster-seeking actor my mom had raised me to be.
So then who was I, and what did I want?
One of the answers came to me by accident.
Instead of wallowing in my recent rejection and eating a bowl of cold cereal for breakfast, I made my way to the diner in town. I was starving after skipping dinner the night before, and I’d been relieved to see Declan had somehow arranged to return the McLaren to me overnight.
When I got to the diner, I shoved my hair under a ball cap and kept my head down, asking quietly for a booth in the back. It was clear the older man who’d greeted me knew who I was, but he seemed to read my mood. “Maybe sit on this side,” he suggested casually, pointing to the bench that faced the back wall instead of the one that faced the rest of the diner. I shot him a grateful look and took a seat.
When the man came back with a steaming pot of coffee and a sweating glass of ice water, I smiled in thanks and ordered the big breakfast special. I scrolled through my phone while I waited and tried not to eavesdrop on the teenager sitting behind me whispering furtively into the phone.
“Dude, they’ll kill me if they find out I’m failing summer school, too. It doesn’t even make sense to have Mr. Reyes for the same damned Shakespeare unit I failed during regular school. If he didn’t explain it right the first time, how am I supposed to learn it in summer school? I’m fucked. My dads are going to freak out. They won’t let me keep working at the diner if I can’t pass this class, and then I’ll never be able to buy a car.”
My ears perked up when he mentioned my favorite topic. How could someone have trouble with Shakespeare? There were like a million resources online to help.
I wanted to butt my nose into his conversation, but I kept my mouth closed. It was none of my business anyway. I went back to scrolling social media.
The older man delivered my food a little while later, and I realized the kid was back working behind the counter. He was tall and lanky with dark hair and a friendly smile for everyone. It didn’t take long to figure out my server was one of his dads. The man beamed at the kid with a kind of affectionate pride I’d always imagined my father would have for me if he’d ever known I existed.
