AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The demolition crew that’s been dismantling my chest takes their first coffee break since Jess left me standing in that steakhouse bathroom. Staring openly at Trevor Gray’s daughter in the cross-hairs of his sniper stare probably isn’t my smartest move, but I can’t help where my gaze wants to go.
“You already texted him?” he asks her.
“You were gonna text me?” I say.
She shakes her head no at her dad and tells me, “Maybe.”
The conflict in her eyes mobilizes the demolition crew to continue razing my chest. Just because I want Jess in my life doesn’t mean she wants me in hers. But I can’t give up until I know for certain. When she tells me to leave, I’ll go. I glance at her dad, not really in favor of the rest of this conversation going down with him as an audience. I’d rather have her shred me in private.
Like she reads my mind, she touches his bulging arm. “Don’t you have to get Vi from the airport?”
“I’m not leaving you alone in the house withhim.” I swear he adds height and muscle to his bulk just by shifting the way he stands.
“Could we maybe... take a drive?” I ask him, suddenly worried he’ll be the one to say no before Jess has a chance to.
“That’s up to my daughter.” He sharpens his laser focus on my forehead until I can feel that tiny red dot.
But it doesn’t faze me as much as the way Jess studies my face. That kinks my heart. I know that look, and the game she’s playing in her head. Even at fifty-fifty, I don’t like myeeny-meeny-miny-moodds. What am I gonna do if she shoots me down before I get to offer her my sleeve-stapled heart?
chapter 69
Jess
I never believed in insta-love. Until Jake showed up at Mom’s funeral and held me while I finally cried.
~ fromWherever I Go byJessica Thorne
(formerly titledJess’s Sucky Second Book)
Halfway through my silent round ofeeny-meeny-miny-moI get lost in Gabe’s deep brown eyes, and my heart trips all over itself.
“Jess,” Dad prompts. “Am I slamming the door in the boy’s face or are you going for a ride?”
The vulnerability Gabe lets me read in his eyes as he waits on my welcome mat draws me forward. “Going for a ride.” Dad’s permission may be grudging, but I’ll take it.
Stepping back, he gives Gabe a look that says he could still slaughter him with bare hands, then sweeps one of those five-fingered lethal weapons toward the door. “I’ll assume you’re out on the dinner with Vi.”
I nod as I pass him, and he closes the door behind me. Vi will high-heel a tango across the table when she finds out why I didn’t come. At least she’s Team Gabe.
“That went well,” Gabe mutters.
“Better than Iexpected.” I get all the way to the passenger side of his car in the driveway, which isn’t the Mustang, before I notice I’m barefoot, wearing the black yoga pants I just threw one and... Gabe’s shirt. Because doesn’t this always happen to me around him?
“I’ve been looking for that shirt.” He briefly touches my hem.
He might as well have touched my skin, it’s like the heat from his fingers burns through the fabric, kicking off an internal game of Twister. “I stole it.”
“I figured.” His grin is magnetic. He’s as hot as ever in jeans and a rap concert tee of a band I’ve never heard of stretched tight across his hard chest. He smells so good all I want to do is bury my face in his neck and breath.
My knees forget they’re not supposed to swoon over him. For a second, the rest of me forgets he isn’t mine anymore too, and I lean in. Then my gaze hits his mouth, and all I can think about is that the last person he kissed was Kim.
My throat dries out. And he’s just too close. Too close. I step out of his touch and brace my hip against the car. Pull it together, Jess. Or go hide inside.
He rests his opposite hip against the car and faces me. “What’s wrong?”
Not about to be the first to bare my soul, I say the first thing that pops into my head. “This isn’t the Mustang.”
“You miss my car that much, huh?” His raised eyebrows call me out. “I rented the Charger at the airport. The Mustang’s back in North Carolina.”
