Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46846 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 187(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
“Hate feeling so numb?” I finish for her.
Her gorgeous eyes widen. “How did you know? Or I guess that’s a stupid question. You lost your wife.”
“We weren’t married.”
I say that way too quickly and with far too much sharpness in my voice. I make myself think of Anna, with her gap-toothed grin and her dark hair in pigtails, singing as she skipped around the garden blowing bubbles.
“I’m sorry,” Lucy says.
“You’ve got nothing to be sorry for,” I tell her.
“I guess it’s a silly thing to say. I knew she was your girlfriend. I just forgot. I don’t know. I guess it’s hard to think straight…I’m sorry.”
She steps back, bumps into the wall, then lets out a big huffing sigh. I can’t help but smirk; then it feels like a smile, an actual smile, the sort I haven’t felt since Anna.
It’s a weird feeling, and I wonder if I’m imagining the lightness in my chest, the momentary break from all that nothingness.
“You don’t have to keep apologizing,” I say. “Especially if it’s going to get you hurt.”
She grins with a hint of sassiness, a challenge in her green eyes. “Okay, fine. I’ll never say sorry to you again.”
My smirk widens. It could be a mistake, but I can’t stop.
“That sounds like we’ll be seeing each other again.”
“What for?” she mutters.
So I can tear off your clothes, rip them to pieces like the wild thing you make me. So I can grab your thick thighs firmly, really fucking indulge in them, then split your legs and taste your eager young slit.
I’m almost panting. I want it so badly.
“We have a counseling course,” I say. “It’s new, but maybe you’d be interested in volunteering? It could be good while you’re waiting for college to start again.”
“I haven’t even decided about college,” she says. “But thank you, Mr., uh, I mean Logan. How do I….”
“Here.”
Another possible mistake, but my hand’s already in my pocket, taking out my second business card.
The one with my private number on it. The one I rarely give out.
“Call me if you’d like to talk about it.”
She reaches forward to take it, our hands brushing again. Carnal fire burns up my arm, through my body, deep down, so it’s impossible to ignore.
Fuck it.
It’s like another part of me takes over.
I’m about to reach forward, grab her wrist, pull her closer and lean down, kiss her so hard she’s got no doubt who she belongs to.
“Ah, Logan.” Trixie walks over, breaking the spell. “I’ve got somebody I want you to meet.”
I leave Lucy reluctantly, spending the next ten or so minutes talking with others.
When I’m done, Lucy’s left.
CHAPTER FIVE
Lucy
“Aren’t you going to call him?”
I lie on my bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking about the moment when I basically ran from the community center. It was when I saw Logan talking with a woman, closer to his age, tall with a short dress on that showed her lean, athletic legs.
It wasn’t the woman herself, but the way she was looking at him, with this wild sassiness in her eyes.
It was like she was saying, I know what you want, Logan, and I know how to give it to you.
I know neither.
I couldn’t even fake a look like that.
“Lucy?”
I look over at Jane. She’s sitting in my computer chair, spinning around and around. We moved into a two-bedroom apartment together one month after Dad’s death. He didn’t have life insurance, and we were never wealthy, so Jane paid my way until I found work.
She started working for a marketing agency straight out of high school, writing on the side and doing incredibly well for herself. I couldn’t be prouder.
I’ve been paying her back, but it never feels like enough.
She saved my life. I was useless after Dad’s death, a waking zombie.
“I don’t know,” I murmur. “I’m not sure why he even gave me his number. His personal number, I mean. He didn’t have to. I googled the counseling Never Alone stuff. There’s a form online you use to apply.”
“Um, maybe because he wanted to help you? That’s the whole point of his, well, his life, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I say, resisting the urge to grind my teeth. “That and finding the most beautiful women alive to screw.”
“Oh,” Jane says.
“Oh?” I sit up, tilting my head. “What’s ‘oh?’”
Jane looks at me steadily. “This is about your crush.”
There’s no point arguing where Jane’s concerned. She’s been able to read me ever since she picked me up off the dirt in junior high. I’d swung for a baseball and missed so badly that the momentum carried me around and sent me on my ass.
“Maybe,” I say quietly. “But it doesn’t matter.”
“If he gave you that number because he was interested, and it had nothing to do with the counseling volunteering, would you call him then?”
I stand, but really it feels like something’s driving me to my feet. Walking over to the window, I look down at the street at night. A few people hang around on the corner, and a couple of teenagers pull wheelies on their bikes.