AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Jay Bishop in my bed,” Sophia counters with a smirk. “His mouth at my beck and call.”
“Yeah you do.” Bishop himself wanders to his ballerina—neck tattoos and guns on his body—and smacks a kiss to the center of her bow-shaped lips. “Though Dolly’s not wrong about thesetting a fire for his womanthing.” He turns to perch his entirely-too-firm ass on the edge of the desk. His shoulders are huge, his biceps about the size of my head. But his eyes are playful. Kind. “A real man will do whatever needs to be done to take care of his girl.”
“Even leave her?” Sophia asks. “Because he’s acting the martyr.”
I hate how my eyes burn. How my stomach swirls with nerves. “Is there anything you people don’t know?”
“Sometimes a man has to leave. For a while, anyway.” Kane Bishop, Jay’s older brother and Dolly’s most beloved Bishop, saunters forward for a snack. He has twin girls, and a wife who somehow juggles a career as a lawyer and marriage with a thug. “If he has to go, if he truly thinks it’s protecting her, then maybe he deserves a little grace.”
“Even if he was wrong?” I retort.
Though I clamp my lips shut when every set of eyes comes up to meet mine.
Shaking my head, I turn away. “Forget I said anything. Let me know if this food is acceptable,” I call back to Preston. “You have until dinnertime tonight to decide if we need to change the menu. Tomorrow, I shop for bulk ingredients.”
“These are good.” His eyes follow my progress as I move into the hall and pass the woman who smells of flowers and sex. “Start shopping. Send my invoice. And, Han?”
I close my eyes and stop in the middle of the hall. Slowly opening them again and turning to face him, I exhale a sigh when his expression says he knows everything there is to know about me. Perhaps even more than Nicole.
“Be kind to yourself, okay? Things have a way of working out how they should.”
An impulsive, incredulous laugh surprises us both as I turn away. “Uh-huh. I’ll be in touch, and your food will be at the venue on Saturday night. Oh, and I had a massive fight with Nic earlier today, so when you see her, maybe give her a little extra love. I was an ass. And… she’s had her world rocked.” Lifting a single shoulder in a shrug, I start toward the exit.
Because the problem with small towns is that there are no secrets.
Just a woman whose heart was broken, and a firefighter who doesn’t want to step down off his soapbox.
Moving through the front door and into the sunlight outside, a sense of comfort rolls across my chest when I spot Raul leaning back against the hood of his van, his arms folded, and a smile on his lips as our eyes meet.
“Hey, chickie.” He pushes away from his vehicle and pulls me into a quick hug the second I’m close enough. When he’s done and steps back, he holds me close so I can’t hide my face and looks me up and down. “You look tired.”
I bark out a laugh and start walking. He’ll keep up, or he’ll get in his van and go back to work. “Telling a woman she looks tired is a backhanded way of calling her ugly.”
“Uh, no.” Just like I knew he would, he jogs to catch up and falls into step on my left. “Noticing that you look tired is a friend’s way of saying he’s worried about you. You’re crazy if you think I don’t see the shadows under your eyes. How’d your date go last night?”
“Ugh.” I look to the sky and groan. “It was a disaster. Thomas was nice enough.” Lowering my gaze, I start toward the park in the middle of town, now that I’m no longer searching for a lake to drown myself in. “He seemed really nice, actually. But you’ll never guess who’s in town.” I glance to my left and scowl. “Axel fricken Feeney.”
His lips peel back in disgust. “That doesn’t sound fun. I didn’t realize he was back yet.”
“Neither did I,” I growl. “But he helped himself to my table, sat his ass down, scared Thomas off, and pulled the fire alarms on his way out.”
“What?” Raul pivots in front of me to stop our stroll. “The fire alarms?”
“Yeah! The sprinklers started up and ruined an entire restaurant. Who knows, there’s probably an insurance situation coming out of all this. Regardless, Axel apparently struggles with being told to go away, and Thomas has an issue with not running away like a coward because another guy is peeing nearby.”
“So you…” Raul sets his hands on his hips and inhales until his chest grows. “Wow! What the hell?”
“Pretty much what’s been on repeat in my brain since.” I step around him and continue walking. “Our reunion didn’t go well.”
“So you told him to go away?” Raul jogs to catch up again. “Like, you weren’t tempted, for even a second, to rekindle what you used to have?”
Yes! With every last morsel of hope in my heart, yes.
“No. What he did was not okay. And the things he said seven months ago were even worse. The fact he thinks he can walk in now and act like nothing happened is not something I can accept.”
“So you’re just…” His breath comes faster as he works to keep up with my long strides. “Done?”
“Yep.” I step off the curb at the end of the block and cross over. “And Thomas is out, too. Because he’s a pussy. So we’re back to the drawing board.”
