Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 67665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 67665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 338(@200wpm)___ 271(@250wpm)___ 226(@300wpm)
20
LINDSEY
Things were going so well. I almost couldn’t believe it. Was he the same man I had been dreading living with? The same one I tossed a beer on in the bar a month and a half ago? I tried not to think about the rocky start to our relationship. Jason turned out to be the perfect roommate. We split up the cooking and the cleaning without anything so anal as a chore chart. He cooked when he felt like cooking, and I cooked when I felt like cooking, and if nobody felt like cooking, we had sandwiches or pizza or went out to the Lucky Lady.
We still had nominally separate rooms. I had all my things in one room with my bed, and he had all his things in another room with his bed. We still spent a lot of nights separately because we were feeling our way into this thing. You can’t just jump straight from strangers to bedfellows. We slept together when it was comfortable, when we had worn each other out through lovemaking, and we didn’t want to brave the cold dark hallway.
Some days, though, I fell into my own bed without knocking on his door. Some days he was working late, and we didn’t talk after dinner. We had made love in both of our beds, in the shower, and on the couch… The list went on.
I stretched in bed, alone, thinking all kinds of good things about Jason. He was dedicated to his job, that was for sure. There had been no movement on the drug dealing and money laundering front. Lena was as short-tempered as ever, but she hadn’t chased the customers with scissors since that Wednesday a month ago.
I continued to help her drag bags of cash into the alley anytime Katrina or the assistant manager wasn’t available, which was often. Every time I did it, I was aware that Jason or Ryan or some other police officer was watching. The sketchy driver started to know me by sight and even smiled at me once. I did not smile back.
Ava kept talking about Ryan, even though he wouldn’t give her the time of day. Jason had explained what Ryan told him, swearing me to secrecy. I had developed a picture of Ryan in my head as the low-down, two-timing bastard. Finding out that Ava had made mistakes too was a shock. I guess there were always two sides to every argument. It was obvious to everyone, including me, that their relationship was over, but Ava hung on. She saw him in the grocery store and was pretty sure he was checking her out. She drove by his home and didn’t see his car—did that mean he was out with another woman?
“That’s borderline stalking,” Jason told me one night over dinner.
“She doesn’t mean anything by it,” I said.
“Hmm.” He touched my nose, wiping sauce from the tip. “I’m obligated to tell Ryan.”
“Please don’t,” I begged. “I shouldn’t have mentioned it. She didn’t stop or go inside or talk to anyone. She just drove by the house.”
“I won’t tell Ryan if you make sure she doesn’t do it again.”
I nodded. I would have to find a way to bring that up with my best friend. Ryan was a police officer, and their tryst was over. Ava needed to move on, and as her friend who wants to see her happy more than anyone, it was my job to help her do it.
There was something more important going on that morning, though. I was considering my own relationship. Jason and I were more than roommates, more than friends. We had the work thing going on, where we spent hours talking about the hair salon and everyone that came and went every day. We had date nights where we got dressed up and drove out of town to eat, drink, or dance. Jason was a passable dancer. Not brilliant, but I gave him points for trying.
We had long, loving nights wrapped up in each other’s arms and breakfast together on our days off. The whole thing was moving so quickly, I felt like I wanted to get a handle on it before it sped away. We could very easily fall into a routine, each one assuming we were on the same page. I was falling for him, hard. But was he feeling the same way? Was this relationship leading toward something else, something bigger and better? Or was it just a comfortable living arrangement that he could walk away from easily? I had to know.
Talking about my feelings hadn’t been my strong suit. After my dad died, my mom dried up. She wouldn’t talk to me very much, just going through the motions, putting dinner on the table and driving me to school. I knew she was hurting, but every time I tried to bring up the subject, she pushed it away. I guess I learned that talking about feelings was more painful than having them, and it was a difficult lesson to unlearn.