AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I walked her over to the passenger side of my Jeep and opened her door, closing it firmly once she was all the way in. Then I hurried around to my side, wondering how differently today would have gone with the woman from the newsraider chat group. I was pretty sure I wouldn’t have been running my fingers through her hair this morning or getting lectures on my level of flirtation.
“You slam car doors too hard,” Sadie said when I got in. Speaking of lectures.
“I slam them too hard?”
“Yes.”
“Are you just saying that to pick a fight with me?”
“No. I’m telling you because you slam doors too hard. Like you’re trying to keep out a tsunami or something. No one else has ever mentioned it to you? Because Jenny’s mentioned it to me.”
“The two of you discuss things like how hard I close doors?”
“Yes. We discuss a lot of things about you. Like how you dated her old roommate, Lauren. And how you hit on Jenny at Lauren’s wedding.”
“I didn’t hit on her. I was being friendly.” Yep, definitely picking a fight. And wow, I did not need to know I was a hot topic of discussion in their apartment. I’d be thinking about that fun fact later. “And as for the door shutting thing—”
“Slamming.”
“Whatever. You don’t need to worry about that anymore. Next time, I’ll sit down here and honk until you come out like all your other dates. Then you can shut your own door with the perfect amount of force.”
“Good. I will.”
“Good. I’ll let you.”
For a moment, I felt like slamming doors for real. Sadie’s love affair with saying whatever she felt like drove me crazy. There were some things that should go unsaid. It was a universal law that made life smoother for everyone. How could she not see that? Maybe I could start dropping some truth bombs on her for a change. We’d see what she thought of my refreshing honesty.
Oh, and she could deny it all day, but I knew she picked fights to keep a comfortable distance between us. The truth? She was a huge chicken.
Okay, maybe I was, too. I’d promised myself I was done with pointless relationships. I was done getting attached to women who didn’t really want to be with me. Or maybe I was just done getting superficially attached. According to Julian, I didn’t get attached enough. Whatever the truth was, it all led to the same conclusion—being interested in Sadie was a bad decision, times infinity. She definitely didn’t want to be with me, to the point where she’d blatantly told me. So, yeah, maybe I was happy to fight with her, too. It was a whole lot better than thinking about what else I’d like to do with her.
I shut my eyes for a moment. The problem was, deep down, I liked Sadie’s scrappy side just as much as I hated it. Those rare moments of connection with her were like tiny flakes of gold in a miner’s pan. I wanted to search for more, even if the pursuit would eventually bankrupt me.
I backed out of the parking lot and pulled up my GPS so we could find the news station and the real purpose to our day.
“Where’s the strawberry part of your outfit?” I asked, glancing over at Sadie while I drove. “If I have to wear this ugly tie, we have to find you something pink.”
She pulled the delicate gold chain up from under her shirt and showed me a strawberry charm at the end of it.
“Oh, so that’s what that charm is.”
“It’s not usually a strawberry. I changed it out for today.” She left it at that and stared out the window while I drove.
Chapter 19 – Sadie
We parked in a pay-by-the-hour parking garage around the corner from the news station and walked out together at street level.
In hindsight, we probably should have driven separately to make it look more like a blind date of the online variety. I never would have given my address to some rando on the internet and let him come pick me up in real life.
Plus, if I’d driven separately, I wouldn’t have knocked Denver over on my doorstep or dropped my phone or bumped heads with him or, well, any of the rest of it. The bump on my forehead was almost gone, but I would never get the feel of Denver’s hands in my hair out of my mind. My scalp had been a traitor, sending all sorts of pleasure signals to my brain that said Denver was safe, and desirable, and I should definitely keep him around.
FALSE.
Touching Denver or letting him touch me was a really bad idea.
I pulled out my phone and checked the time. Shoot. We were going to be late. It was a good thing I’d gone with Vans rather than flip flops. I picked up the pace, and Denver easily matched me. The drive had taken longer than we expected thanks to some unexpected construction zones. It seemed like Phoenix was always under construction.
Just as I’d feared, most of the group had already arrived when we walked up, and they eyed the two of us with open curiosity. There were also at least a dozen other strangers ready for their fifteen seconds of background fame.
