Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 92417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 92417 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 462(@200wpm)___ 370(@250wpm)___ 308(@300wpm)
But she hadn’t come in. Instead, she’d gone straight up to her apartment.
After returning Xander’s car and getting my truck back, I headed into the garage to work. Eventually she appeared in the garage door, looking so sweet and pretty my arms physically ached to hold her.
“Question,” she said. “I found a slow cooker in the basement. Can I use it to make dinner tonight?”
“Of course. You can use anything you want. What’s mine is yours.”
“Okay. Thanks. I’ll have dinner all ready by the time you get home from the airport.” She’d smiled at me before walking back to the house, but it seemed oddly impersonal. Like what had happened between us meant nothing to her.
Now I watched her move around in the kitchen, much more confident than she used to be, piling pulled chicken on bakery buns, spooning coleslaw onto plates, laughing and talking with the kids, shining all her light in their direction.
And I was jealous—of my own damn kids!
Angry with myself, I took their suitcases up to their rooms, dumped all their dirty laundry into their hampers, put their shoes in their closets and their toothbrushes back in the bathroom. Then I studied myself in the mirror, dismayed to see those two lines between my beetled brows.
I tried to force my forehead muscles to relax, but those lines refused to go away.
“Dad!” Adelaide called up the stairs. “Dinner!”
“Coming.” But before I went downstairs, I entered my bedroom and hurried over to the bed. Picked up the pillow she’d used. Held it up to my face and inhaled.
She was not, by any means, out of my system.
It went on like that all week.
On Monday, she and the kids were back in their routine—camp, chores, activities, leisure time. I watched them come and go, heard all about their adventures together when I put the kids to bed at night, suffered silently through meals during which the three of them talked and laughed.
We were never alone together. I wasn’t sure if she was avoiding me on purpose or what, but somehow she and I were never in the house when the kids weren’t home. She didn’t pop into the garage to chat. If she passed me on the driveway or in the hall and the kids were out of sight, she didn’t make eye contact, and she certainly didn’t get close enough to brush my sleeve as she went by. I never saw her wear my shirts or my hat again.
She seemed fine without me, and I was losing my mind.
On Friday night, she went out, wearing that fucking red miniskirt. I was like a stupid jealous husband or nervous father all night, watching for her headlights out the front window. When I finally saw them around eleven p.m., I quickly grabbed my beer and ran out to sit by the fire pit, as if I’d been out there relaxing all night.
She walked up the driveway and headed for the garage stairs without seeing me.
“Hey,” I called.
Startled, she looked over at me. “Oh! Oh. Hey. I didn’t see you there.”
“Did you have fun?”
“Yes.”
“Who were you with?” I asked, knowing it was none of my business.
“Ari.”
Relief washed over me. “Where’d you go?”
“A wine bar called Lush.”
“Never been there.”
“It’s nice. You should go sometime.” She glanced up at her apartment, like she couldn’t wait to get away from me.
“Was it just the two of you?”
“Yes.”
“See anyone you knew?” Like fucking Daniel? I still hadn’t forgotten the guy she’d danced with at The Broken Spoke.
“A few people. Bubba and Willene Fleck. Your aunt Faye and a friend. And Ari introduced me to some people.”
Men or women? I wanted to ask, but knew I couldn’t. My gaze wandered over her blond waves, those scarlet lips, the long legs beneath that little red skirt. I gripped my beer bottle tight. The need to touch her was nearly unbearable.
Say something, you idiot. Don’t let her leave.
But I couldn’t think of anything, and after a moment of crickets chirping in the dark, she said goodnight and went up to her apartment.
I watched the light come on and saw her come over to the window. She stood there for a moment, looking down at me. I took a long pull on my beer. Then she pulled down the shade, disappearing behind it.
I felt like smashing the bottle on the concrete.
Rising to my feet, I went inside, angry at myself, at her, at the world. I went to bed mad, refusing to even look at her side of the bed. I’d changed the sheets but not her pillowcase, but I didn’t sniff it tonight. I didn’t jerk off either, which I’d done several times this week, the angriest self-serve hand jobs imaginable.
Saturday morning, the first thing I did was shove that pillowcase in the washing machine, as if that would punish her.