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“You didn’t wait for me.”
Summer turned around to face me, and my breath hitched at the sight of her. Today, she was wearing tight jeans with a frilly pink top that hugged every curve of her body, and her hair was pulled up in a ponytail. She looked wholesome and cute, but my cock was busy remembering last night.
“I didn’t think you’d want me to.” She crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes daring me to argue.
I stepped closer, our bodies almost touching. “Don’t be ridiculous. Of course, I wanted you to. You were going to leave without saying goodbye?”
She looked away and shrugged, seemingly without concern.“What does it matter? We had a good time. Now we can go our separate ways.”
I was speechless. Is that what she wanted? A million thoughts ran through my head, but nothing came out of my mouth. This lass was tying me up in knots.
Finally, I’d had enough. I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to pull out my hair or break something, anything, to release my frustration. But instead of doing any of that, I did the only thing that made sense — I grabbed Summer by the shoulders and pulled her into a tight embrace.
She was stiff at first, but she didn’t fight my embrace. She stood awkwardly in my arms, her body unwavering.
“I guess this is goodbye, then.” The gruffness in my voice betrayed the tightness in my throat.
“Goodbye, Scotty. Thanks for the fun memories.” She gave me a quick squeeze.
Fun memories? That’s what she had reduced us to? The crowd surged around us as suitcases began dropping onto the carousel.
She stepped forward. “I better go get my bag.”
“Wait, I’ll help you.” I guess I was a glutton for punishment.
She waved me off. “It’s better if you don’t, for both of us. Just leave now.”
My hands dropped helplessly to my sides. “Can I call you? To see how your mother is doing?”
She shook her head, but her bottom lip was trembling. “That will just complicate things. You were right. It’s better not to get emotionally involved. I’m just taking your advice. We had a great time, but now that it’s over, I have to take care of myself.”
I just stood there as she turned around and disappeared into the thick crowd surrounding the baggage carousel.
Everything about this felt wrong. I was as cold and empty inside as a marble statue.
I wanted to go after her, but the words she said were true. We had a good time together, and now it was time to move on. I’d never had a problem doing that before, but hearing her say it had cut through me, slicing open a wound that kept bleeding until I thought I’d bleed out.
The ache in my chest felt a lot like the exact thing I’d been avoiding ever since that awful fucking day when Aila broke my heart.
Chapter 20
Summer
Ididn’thavetimeto think about Scotty. I was too busy worrying about my mother and finishing up a big project at work so I could go back to Kentucky and spend a few days with my mom helping her post-surgery.
Oh, who was I kidding? He was on my mind day in and day out. I had tried to keep my emotions in check. I’d iced him out. I did everything in my power not to allow myself to get too attached to him. Just because we fucked didn’t mean I had to fall head over heels in love with him.
He should be nothing but a great memory seen in the rear-view mirror. But this anguish that dogged me? And this moping around? The second-guessing that I should have done something differently? With all the protections I’d put in place, it turned out that I was miserable, anyway.
If I had been just attracted to his looks, moving on would have been easy. His good looks combined with the fantastic sex made it much harder. His sexy accent was like icing on the hotness cake. But, after spending time with him, it turned out that I actually liked him. He had a great personality. I liked the respectful way he treated my parents; he was friendly with a great sense of humor, and he was kind while also being confident, intelligent, protective, and self-assured. What was there not to like about him except that he was a player?
Celia, my closest friend in L.A. was also a co-worker. During our lunch break, I’d described my crazy weekend at the spa with my fake boyfriend to her. Although she was the opposite of me when it came to men — she had a new boyfriend every week — I occasionally listened to her advice, if only to moderate my tendency toward the extreme.
Needless to say, Celia was team Scotty all the way. She oohed and ahhed when I described him to her, only stopping her over the top gushing to chastise me that I didn’t have a picture of him or his social media account info so she could check him out.
When I’d gotten around to describing the airport scene, her mouth dropped open. In dramatic flair, she told me I was a complete idiot. I didn’t trust her instincts very often, but her reaction left some doubts in me. Had I done the right thing? Did I walk away from something potentially amazing just to protect my heart from getting trampled on again?
When Scotty texted me to ask how my mom’s surgery went, Celia told me to call him. I didn’t. I texted back a polite reply. When he texted a few more times, she demanded I call him. I was on the fence, but I refrained.
