Total pages in book: 124
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126840 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
He leveled his light-blue eyes on me.
“Why’d you dump him?”
I nearly choked on a chip, managed to swallow it, and asked, “What?”
“Your boyfriend. Keeping an eye on you, saw him walk out with a box of his shit. Why’d you give him the boot?”
This was absolutely not his business.
However, it’d be interesting to see his reaction to why that happened.
“I have a cabinet over the toilet. He had a habit of not shutting the door to said cabinet. Obviously, this means I cracked my head on it anytime I didn’t notice to shut it before I used the facilities. I asked him repeatedly to close it, he kept forgetting. I cracked my head in the middle of the night, he heard me cry out in pain, asked me if I was okay, then laughed when I told him what happened.”
Core was now frowning, and it had to be said, it was kinda scary.
“There was more, like not recycling even though I asked, and not cleaning up after he and his buds used my place to watch some boxing match, even though I asked him to do that too. It’s little stuff, petty.” I reached for my water, sipped, put it back. “But it adds up and I have more to do in my life than try to train some guy who doesn’t think things that matter to me are important.”
I wasn’t sure Core heard the second part, considering once I was done speaking, he asked, “He heard you crack your head and he laughed?”
I scooped a chip, mumbling, “Yeah, that was the one I got stuck on too.”
“So you ended it, and he just took his box and left?”
“He’s putting out feelers for a chat.”
“You gonna go there?”
It dawned on me only then that this was a conversation.
It wasn’t an exploration.
He was curious, and it wasn’t because he was interested in me.
Not in that way. The way I was trying, and failing, not to be interested in him.
In other words, he wasn’t into me.
In fact, his good looks, the confident, assertive man he was, he wasn’t wearing a wedding band, but that didn’t mean he didn’t have a woman. All he was, he probably did.
Sure, he teased me about wanting to climb him like a tree, but I saw now he was just messing with me.
Not, as I’d thought, flirting with me.
I’d read it wrong. It’d seemed that way before.
But a woman knew.
There was a distance in that booth between us.
Sure, we were chatting, it was easy, friendly, but I felt it.
We were getting to know each other, but we weren’t getting to know each other.
A new wound opened, and how I could spend a year with a man I liked very much and hurt when it was over, but the hurt I felt right then seemed more acute and like it dug a whole lot deeper, I didn’t know.
I gave it all to push past it.
So he wasn’t into me. I barely knew him, and he was probably taken. This wasn’t the end of the world.
Furthermore, I was guessing I was younger than him in a way some men weren’t into. I was mature for my age, but I was still at least a decade younger than him.
I knew bikers liked what they liked, because Jag was all biker, but Archie wasn’t a biker babe. And their wedding, as well as Dutch and Georgie’s (Georgie also wasn’t a biker babe), had been chockful of bikers, and not every woman there was wearing the stereotypical halter top and bandana wrapped around her head. Not even close.
So maybe it was because I was younger than him.
Or maybe he had a woman in his life.
Or maybe it was because I just wasn’t his thing.
Okay, yeah, as much as I told myself he was a jerk, truth was, he was hot, he’d demonstrated the capacity to give a shit about me (and Marcy), and our banter was fun. Not a lot of guys had the balls to shovel it back at me. It was a massive turn on.
So I wasn’t his thing, but he was mine.
Um, yeah.
That hurt.
“Hellen,” he prompted.
“Sorry.” I shook my head. “Yeah, no. I’m not going to go there with Bryan.”
“Good,” he murmured, took his arm from the booth and reached for a chip.
I didn’t ask why this was his response when he’d never met Bryan, and not only because I didn’t get the chance.
My phone rang, this time the actual Mandalorian theme.
Core’s brows tugged down when he heard it.
I glanced at my phone, and then blew out a breath when I saw Marcy was calling me.
She rarely called. We texted, and we saw each other all the time, so we didn’t need to chat on the phone.
She was just being nosy about Core.
“Marcy,” I told him.
He jerked up his chin.