AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Melodrama?” I rolled my eyes.
“I only saw Kristy’s side of things, but, dude, she looked pissed.” He leaned against the counter, wiping a hand on his dark apron.
“She always looks pissed when I’m around. That’s nothing new.”
He laughed a big-bellied laugh that made his smile so wide that his cheeks nearly swallowed up his entire face.
“That was some kiss.” He lowered his voice. “Real? Not real? What’s the deal?”
“Did she see?” I asked, setting the food on the counter as I leaned on my elbows.
He grinned. “Oh, yeah. If steam could shoot out of someone’s ears…”
“I don’t know why the fuck she cares. She’s the one who left.”
“Sometimes unhappy people are like that.”
My brows furrowed in confusion. “She’s happy. She practically has it tattooed on her forehead.”
He shrugged. “Seems a little forced. Don’t you think?”
I tried to think back to the Kristy I had known. The Kristy I’d fallen in love with wasn’t the woman who had stood in front of me today. They were two very different people.
“When did you get to be so wise?” I goaded him.
“Comes with the beard,” he joked. “And stop changing the subject. You didn’t answer my question. Real? Not real?”
I let out a sigh. “That’s too complicated for me to answer right now. And my food is getting cold.”
“Too complicated? What the hell does that mean?”
“It means,” I said with a frustrated pause, “that she has a boyfriend.”
And deserved a hell of a lot better than me.
“Oh,” he said, the word coming out in one long breath.
“Yeah.”
His eyes went past me to the patio, where Marin was, and then finally centered back on me. “I’m gonna give you advice that might sound ludicrous and kind of cutthroat. Especially from someone who’s currently in a long-distance relationship with a person thousands of miles away.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
He shrugged again. “I don’t see any boyfriend around here. Do you?”
* * *
Every time I tried walking away from this woman, I found myself right back at her damn door.
“I think I’ve changed my mind,” I said, hoping out of my truck.
She let out a sigh, the sound heavy against my ears. “You already said yes.”
“Yeah,” I countered, grabbing the back of my neck with my palm as I looked at the long walkway. “But then I thought I’d gotten out of it since we weren’t really doing the whole gala thing anymore and I kind of forgot about it.”
“It’s a dinner party. How bad can it be?” I could hear her walking, the sound of her heels clacking on the wooden floor as she closed the distance between us.
“If I punch him, I’m gonna tell my deputy it was your fault.”
