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I turned away, and it was only when I heard her say ‘whatever’ that I smiled.
That smile died when I got closer to the dog who was still making the god-awful racket.
“Shut up!” I snarled loudly.
The dog stopped so abruptly that I almost felt sorry for my words.
I walked into the house, aware that I’d left my door open in my haste to get outside and over to Coreline’s. I wondered if the stray cat that thinks he’s my cat had wandered in that’d been on my porch for the last few days.
After a cursory glance through the house and not finding him, I walked to my bedroom and fell face-first into the bed.
And then dreamed about a certain fiery little brunette, with her pale-gray eyes, that really managed to bother the absolute shit out of me.
The dream was hot.
Way hotter than I would’ve ever been able to think up on my own during the day, and I wondered idly why my brain was so fucked up.
Because there wasn’t any way in hell that Coreline would ever be anything more to me than the nuisance that lived next door.
But a phrase my father used a lot would’ve been fitting as fuck for my thoughts on Coreline: Famous last words.
CHAPTER 3
I wonder if you look both ways before you get on my goddamn nerves.
-Coreline to Tide
CORELINE
“You do realize that he’s not saying anything that you haven’t said yourself, right?” Ethel asked curiously.
I narrowed my eyes at her. “I can’t believe you agreed to go out on a date with him.”
“I can’t believe that you won’t admit that you like him,” she countered.
I wanted to scream that I didn’t like him, but Ethel would just see that as a sign of guilt, or desire on my end, and then sink her teeth in deeper.
It was just easier to shut up and let her talk than to talk myself and put any more thoughts into her head. But, like always, my brain and my mouth weren’t always on the same wavelength.
“I’m not ever going to admit anything when it comes to that man,” I told her honestly. “He went out of his way to bully me and make my life a living hell my senior year of high school. Then he went out of his way to make sure he gave me so much shit, that I didn’t date a single soul in college. He’s an asshole, plain and simple. Honestly, you should just call and cancel your date with him. He’ll be a total asshole.”
“I…” My phone rang, causing her to halt whatever it was she was about to say.
Her eyes narrowed on the ringtone—the only one that she ever narrowed her eyes at when she heard it—and crossed her arms over her chest.
“Want to go on a double date?” She batted her eyelashes. “You can bring Franklin.”
I sighed. “That would be awful.”
“Come on,” she urged. “It’ll be fun.”
She was wrong.
It was horrible.
And I lost my boyfriend that night for my troubles.
• • •
I met Franklin about four months ago during a thunderstorm.
He’d come into the shop with his new Audi, parked it under my dad’s covered awning, and gotten out to explain why he was there—mostly that he was scared it was going to hail, and he didn’t want his brand-new car to get dinged up.
Not that I could blame him. I’d brought my 1987 Chevrolet truck, painted bass-boat purple, under the awning myself.
After about twenty minutes of talking, and the storm rolling through just as fast as it’d arrived, he’d asked me out on a date and I’d agreed.
We’d been dating ever since.
It was… nice.
That was all that I could say about it, to be honest.
I didn’t feel any sparks, and the one and only time I’d contemplated having sex with him, caused me to think that maybe I was just broken.
Maybe I was never going to have sex.
Because Franklin—don’t ever call him Frank, because he didn’t like it—was hot as sin.
He was tall, blond, and wore a pair of khaki pants like a king.
He had a fine, shapely ass, shoulders that were great to hang off of, and he loved my hair and my eyes.
“Watch out, freaky Elvis,” grumbled Tide.
I wanted to throat punch him.
I did not have freaky eyes.
They were very light gray, sure, but they weren’t ‘white’ like he liked to tell me they were.
It wasn’t my fault that my eyes looked like they did.
And he didn’t have to go around telling everyone that I was dying because my irises didn’t have much color to them.
But it was something that he’d done since before I could remember.
Something that I’d dealt with, even though I didn’t like it.
I moved out of Tide’s way despite his words and smiled at Franklin who walked up the front walk toward me.
His eyes were caught on what I was wearing—which were cutoff blue jean shorts and a white T-shirt from Victoria’s Secret, as well as a pair of cowboy boots.
