AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He just smiles. “Absolutely. Tonight was fun. It’s been a long time since I’ve met a woman who isn’t afraid to be herself.”
I shake my head. “That’s not totally true. There was definitely some fear.”
He laughs. “Anything worth doing is a little scary, right?”
I smile as I move to stand. “In the interest of honesty and being myself,” I say. “You look better in person, too.”
He smiles, shaking his head and I see twin dimples appear. Damn. I’m a sucker for dimples.
“Thank you,” he says.
I smile and lean down to kiss his cheek.
“Thanks for a great night,” I say before walking toward the exit.
“Layna!”
I turn around at the sound of my name. Michael is standing there, still waiting for his card to be returned to him.
“Can I call you?”
I smile. “I’d be disappointed if you didn’t.”
His face breaks into a wide smile as I turn and walk from the bar. I somehow manage to wait until I’m back in my car to squeal like a giddy teenager. Michael seems too good to be true, but I can’t help the happiness coursing through me. I’d wanted to kiss him, but it didn’t feel like the right time. I replay the night in my head as I drive home to Peach Tree, wondering if maybe there’s something to that dating app after all. It’s too soon to tell, I know. But I’m feeling more hopeful after tonight.
Chapter 16
PresentDay
Cole
I smile at the server as she sets the plates of food on the table in front of us. Layna is seated across from me at a local burger joint just outside of town. It’s one of Peach Tree’s best-kept secrets. It looks like a dive from the outside, but locals know they’ve got the best burgers in the county. I can’t wait to dig in.
Layna called me this morning to ask if I would meet her for a late lunch this afternoon to talk about her latest date with Michael. I’d tried to get her to give me the info through text or even a phone call, but she’d insisted we meet in person. It’s not that I didn’t want to see her. I do. In fact, I want to see her too much. All the time, in fact. I think that’s part of the problem.
It’s been a month since we stopped having sex and I think maybe I’m having withdrawals. It’s not that I’ve never gone for this long without sex before. I have. I’ve gone for several months at a time in the past with just my hand for company. It’s not the sex I miss, exactly. I think it’s her. Layna. I can’t stop thinking about being with her and mentally reliving all the amazing times we had. Sometimes with the company of my hand. Which is absurd. Our arrangement was a mutual one. We both agreed to the rules. And I hadn’t even been upset when she ended things. Not really. So, what’s bothering me now?
I’ve never been this way about a woman. Not even after my college girlfriend broke up with me. And we’d been dating for nearly a year. I even thought I was in love with her. And I still hadn’t been as obsessed with her as I am now with Layna. So, why can’t I seem to shake the memory of Layna in my bed? Is it just because she’s the one who ended things? Is it a pride thing? Maybe it’s because she’s so clearly moving on without me. Maybe that’s what I need to do too. I need to find someone new who can push aside the memory of being with Layna. I roll the idea around in my mind, trying to make it seem more appealing, but it’s no use. I don’t want to date someone else. I just want things to go back to the way they were before. But I know that’s not an option.
Eventually, I push all that from my mind and focus on the reason she asked me here today. Her date. Or, I should say dates. Because she’s had several over the past few weeks. None of them has been promising. Granted, none of them had been quite as terrible as her disastrous date with Dillon. I haven’t had to rescue her from any of them. But they’ve mostly been underwhelming. I’ve listened to her tell me about each one and why things just weren’t right. Up until the current guy. The one she went out with for a third time last night. The guy she’s technically been dating for two weeks now. Michael. I try and tamp down the annoyance I feel at the thought of him. I don’t even know the guy. I’m sure he’s perfectly respectable. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have gone on a second or third date with him. Right?
“A third date, huh?” I say.
I reach over to snag the pickle off Layna’s plate and put it on my own. She hates pickles, but she always gets them anyway so I can have them.
“That sounds serious,” I tease.
She rolls her eyes as she grabs a few of my onion rings to add to her plate before offering me some of her fries. This is our normal routine. She can never decide if she wants fries or onion rings with her burger, so I order onion rings, she orders fries, and we share. It’s a mutually beneficial meal solution.
“I don’t know if I’d call it serious,” she says. “But there’s potential.”
Her words say one thing, but the smile on her face says something else. She looks excited and nervous. I take a bite of my burger and study her for a moment.
“Potential, huh? Is that lawyer talk for you want to bang him?”
She laughs and throws one of her fries at me. “No! It means he’s cute. He’s nice.” She shrugs. “I like him.”
Her face goes pink with a faint blush, and I feel a sinking feeling in my chest. I don’t know what that blush means, but I know that the few times I’ve seen it are when I’ve said something sexual to her. And the first night we met. She’d blushed that night too. So, what does it mean now?
