Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79968 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 400(@200wpm)___ 320(@250wpm)___ 267(@300wpm)
We finished our drinks and filled the air with small talk about Jade River. I knew both of us were just trying to talk about anything that would get our minds off of how badly we wanted to fuck each other, but I had to give Shawn props for at least trying to do the right thing.
No matter how badly I wanted to forget about all of that shit and peel every piece of clothing off of him. I was being good, damn it. As if I deserved gold stars and cookies for not sleeping with my best friend’s younger brother.
When it was time to go to sleep, I offered to take the couch and let Shawn have my bed.
I gave him a pair of my sweatpants and a loose T-shirt, and after we both got ready for bed, I brought a big glass of water to the bedside table in my room.
“If you wake up parched, chug this,” I said. “You’re going to need it.”
“Thank you,” he said, already tucked into my bed, the sheets pulled up close to his face. “Are you sure you don’t want to sleep in here?”
“I don’t mind the couch,” I said. “I bought a nice one. It’s comfy as hell.”
“No,” Shawn said. “I mean sleep with me.”
A jolt of adrenaline coursed through me. “Who says you’re bad at flirting? That’s good. Use that on some guy you meet on a dating app.”
“Maybe I’m getting a little better at it,” he said from the bed, looking up at me with an adorable, sleepy smile that was so tantalizing it almost hurt. His lips were always so full and ruddy. I wanted those lips on my body.
I let out a breath, sitting down at the side of the bed, the mattress dipping a little under my weight. I leaned over him, letting myself get close. I gently kissed the top of his head.
“I don’t want to sleep in here,” I said softly, “and I don’t want to be tempted to do all sorts of things to you while we’re drunk.”
He groaned. The warmth of his skin under my lips was agonizingly inviting.
“I understand,” he murmured.
Every bone in my body was screaming for me to ignore my rules. Ignore everything I knew was the right path forward. But I’d been down that road before, and I’d lost friends. I wasn’t willing to have that happen ever again.
“Sleep well, Shawn,” I said, squeezing his arm before pulling myself off of the bed. It felt like trying to resist the strongest magnetic pull, walking away from him in that moment.
But I wasn’t going to stick my dick where it didn’t belong. I’d been called a heartbreaker many times, but I’d never liked the concept. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. Especially not people that were family to my best friend in the world.
I knew better than that. And if both of us could just find other guys to hook up with, I was sure we’d get over it fast enough, anyway.
I tried to convince myself that it was for the better as I walked back over to the living room, tucked in under the cozy blankets, and tried to sleep.
But my head was spinning as I shifted and shifted on the couch, and it wasn’t because of the alcohol.
The truth was that spending tonight with Shawn had been the first time I hadn’t felt utterly empty since being back in Jade River.
Maybe it would be good for me to have a cuddle buddy, as stupid as the term was. I needed something to occupy my time while I had to be back here in my hometown. And when my heart felt heavy—seeing everything my dad left behind, working in a brewery where half the workers hated me, and remembering difficult moments where I felt trapped, on almost every street of this little town—at least I could have one thing here that just felt good.
Shawn really was a good person, who needed somebody much more settled than me.
But I couldn’t help but enjoy the thought of getting to be near him, and learning who he’d become, for as long as I was here in town.
I could behave. I could enjoy him as eye candy, a cuddle buddy, and nothing more.
7
SHAWN
“Almost there!” Charlie shouted to me, yelling over the sound of the Bobcat’s engine. He squinted at me in the sunlight from behind the wheel of the compact loader, cleaning up the rubble of the concrete block half-fence we’d demolished this morning.
“Good riddance to ‘er,” I called back to him as he started to haul load after load of old, rubbly concrete blocks into our work dumpster nearby.
It was week two of work on the dud house, and our insulation guys were inside right now taking care of the rotted pieces. Charlie, Nathan, and I had spent most of the day out along the perimeter of the property knocking down the old half-wall to prepare for putting in a beautiful new wooden fence.