Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 47176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 47176 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 236(@200wpm)___ 189(@250wpm)___ 157(@300wpm)
I shake my head, pushing that away.
It’s over.
But is that true?
It’s been a week since me and Kelly split. I thought it would be easier not to have Jennifer’s sister around – a reminder of the woman I can never have.
The woman who probably sees me as some grumpy, distant dickhead.
Back at home, I walk up the path of my neighbor’s house, softly pushing the door open.
Right away, Benny and Lucifer are on me. Benny’s a four-year-old Golden Retriever, a happy, smiling dog, and Lucifer is a dark-colored Chihuahua on the older side, named for his devilish growl and the glint in his eyes.
I didn’t name either of them – they’re both rescues – but I think they suit them fine. Even Benny, since he’s so clever, he sometimes seems human.
Mr. Abignale turns in his armchair, but only halfway, most of his attention fixed on the old bunny-ear TV. “Jamie?”
“It’s me,” I tell him.
“Is it eight thirty?”
“No, sir. I’m early.”
“Ah.”
“I’ll leave your money on the counter.”
“You will do no such thing,” he says, and I laugh.
It’s always the same way.
“I mean it,” he grumbles. “The amount of work you did around here last winter alone.”
“And you’ve got these two rascals to take care of, sir. With a bad hip too.”
“Makes no difference to me.”
Mr. Abignale is a proud man, working until he was forced to retire from his second messed-up hip surgery. He won’t admit it, but he more than earns what I pay him, if only for putting up with Lucifer’s growling.
“See you tomorrow, sir,” I say, laying the folded-up bills on the counter.
“And you,” he replies, immediately focusing on the TV again.
I hold Lucifer to my chest as I walk to the door, Benny walking calmly at my side.
And still, she’s there.
My Jennifer.
Taunting, tempting, telling me we can have a life most people would kill for.
A future…and to get that future, I’ll need to grab her, pull her right up next to me and push forward, let her feel all the lust, all the heat pumping up inside of me until….
Benny stops, tilting his head as if saying, Hey, stupid, wait while I take a dump.
I find myself chuckling, reaching down, and scratching him under the chin.
“Trust you to distract me, eh, boy?”
Lucifer rumbles, so I give him a scratch too.
CHAPTER
THREE
Jennifer
“Why so glum, chum?” Kelly asks, grinning as she walks into my bedroom.
Quickly pressing my mouse, I try for a laugh, but lately, every single one has felt forced.
I’m trying to study toward the tail-end of summer, getting ready for next semester, but I can only think about Jamie. All I can think about is the way he looked at me – or didn’t look at me – every time I saw him.
Every party, every random social engagement.
How many times was it, really, all these stares I’m blowing up in my mind?
Three or four? Five at most?
And now I’m just sitting here like a weirdo, staring at Kelly as she looks at me. All the tension seems to have deflated from her, all the sadness she had over breaking up with Jamie gone.
“Hey,” Kelly walks over to the desk. “Are you okay?”
She looks at my laptop screen. My belly goes tight. I know that’s an expression people use, but it’s real. A fist of tension right in my gut.
It’s the way Kelly’s face softens when she sees my desktop background. She knows it’s a photo of the four of us – me, her, mom, and dad – in Malta before the plane crash. She thinks I was in here staring at that, thinking of the good days before our lives changed forever.
She doesn’t know I closed the internet browser the moment I heard her voice.
She doesn’t know I was searching for photos of Jamie online. There aren’t many – he doesn’t have social media – but there are some. A couple of him on his website, where the tattoos are the focal point, but he’s in the background. And a few more on Kelly’s Facebook page, incidental ones taken at parties.
And always, he’s smoldering, staring with those intense eyes.
Maybe he doesn’t hate me. Maybe he hates everyone who isn’t Kelly.
Or maybe her too now, hence the breakup.
Kelly still hasn’t given me any of the details.
“It never gets easier, does it?” Kelly says, gently touching my arm.
“No,” I whisper.
She doesn’t know how right she is, except I’m not talking about letting mom and dad go.
Two weeks since the breakup, two weeks for me to know, without a doubt, that I’m not going to see Jamie again. No waiting to be invited to this or that party, no wondering if he’ll be there.
No butterflies in my stupid belly.
Surely that should be enough to let him go, to stop dreaming of him.
“Where are you going?” I ask, turning in my computer chair.