Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 70376 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 70376 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 352(@200wpm)___ 282(@250wpm)___ 235(@300wpm)
“I can see you as a little charmer.”
“Ha. No. I had no game,” he says. “It took me years to become the practiced lothario you see now before you.”
“Ha.”
“I’m ready and available to whisper dirty things in your ear whenever you’re ready,” he offers. “Free of charge even.”
“That’s very kind of you. I’ll keep it in mind.” I smile all serene-like because I am an amazing actress sometimes. “You never came close to getting married or settling down?”
He downs some champagne. “I’ve dated some great girls. Or women, I should say. And there was one or two that maybe made me want to keep things going. To explore something more . . . but in the end for various reasons it didn’t work out.”
“Guess it wasn’t meant to be.”
“Guess not.”
“What reasons?” I ask, because booze is so great for removing any and all social constraints. Like being polite and minding your own business even matters. Cheers!
“Ah, well, one was a tattoo artist that I met at a convention. We tried long distance for a while, but in the end she wanted to be in L.A. and I wanted to be here.”
“Okay. That’s sad, but inevitable. And the other?”
“This was back when Ed had just taken over the parlor and we were all working our asses off to make it a success,” he says. “Joni couldn’t handle the hours I was working. I mean, she had a point. She was going to school during the day and tending bar at night. We barely got to see each other.”
“You really liked her?”
“We had a lot of fun together.”
I frown. “Fun isn’t an emotion. It tells me nothing about how you felt for this woman.”
“It was ten years ago, Anna. That’s a long time. I don’t know how I felt.”
“Hmm.”
“What does that mean?” he asks. “What is ‘hmm’?”
“Maybe if you can’t remember how you felt, then moving on was the right answer.”
His expression tenses as he gazes down at the next-to-nonexistent space between us. Or maybe it’s more about the neckline of my dress. I’m showing a lot of skin and I do not care.
“You don’t like my dress?”
His lips compress. “I love your dress.”
“Then why so glum, my friend? This is, after all, a party.”
“Nothing.” He eases back a little. Just so our hips and chests are no longer touching. “Everything is great.”
“Okay. If you say so.” My brain is suddenly busy as can be. “I kind of hijacked you the minute you walked in the door. If you’d rather go to the bar, I completely understand. It’s your routine. Your end-of-the-workweek celebration. I can do the one-girl disco here just fine.”
“What? And miss out on swilling champagne, slow-dancing, and watching Twilight?”
“Go, Team Edward.”
“Eh,” says Leif. “Not saying he doesn’t have cool hair, but Jacob has all those rippling muscles.”
“That’s true. It’s a hard choice.” I smile. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For being my friend.”
His smile is slow and beautiful. “It’s an honor.”
CHAPTER SIX
Day one of being a single woman goes like this. My head hurts and my mouth feels like death and my cell won’t stop buzzing. It’s so bad that it wakes up Leif, who’s lying beside me. This is due to drunken late-night discussions that resulted in us both passing out on my bed.
We didn’t mean to sleep together, it just happened. But nothing actually happened other than sleep.
“Make it stop,” he mumbles, face embedded in a white Egyptian cotton pillow with a subtle decorative edging. One of my favorite sets. I choose not to care that they were an engagement gift. If I start letting the existence of Ryan and memories made with him define the value of my belongings then I’ll be down to owning nothing. He got years of my life. He doesn’t get to take another thing from me.
Meanwhile, Leif is not a morning person at the best of times and multiple bottles of champagne the night before can’t be helping. In fact, I’m kind of amazed he’s still beside me on the bed. I figured for sure he’d have been unable to sleep with someone nearby and have snuck out at some stage while I snored the passed-out drunken song of my people. But here he is. Amazing.
I reach over him to grab my cell off the bedside table. “Oh, God.”
“What?”
“Not only have we slept half the day away, but my mother is inundating me with pictures and contact details of assorted single men in the area.”
He opens one eye. “Already?”
“Yes. God help me,” I say. “She’s recommending that I try before I buy with a winking emoji. This is horrifying. What the hell has gotten into her?”
“What would her friends at church say about that?”
I shake my head. “I don’t want to know. Part of me worries they put her up to it. That’s an even more horrifying thought.”