Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 124574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 623(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 124574 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 623(@200wpm)___ 498(@250wpm)___ 415(@300wpm)
His voice lingered with residual teasing that showed he was eager to find a way back to easy banter, but it dripped in melancholy of the reality.
He gave me a nod and Rosie another lingering look before he turned and sauntered off.
We both watched his well-formed ass leave the place.
My eyes snapped back to Rosie. “What was that?”
She gave me a blank look that so didn’t fool me, though it might fool a judge or two it was that innocent. I knew no such thing as innocent, especially within my spitfire of a best friend. Though, come to think of it, she had convinced at least two judges of the contrary.
“What?” she said.
I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t what me. I was here. I witnessed Luke trying to start a conversation with you, finally with his eyes wide open, and you shut it down quicker than I max out my credit card at the online Nordstrom sale.”
She picked up her napkin and wiped some remaining coffee from the table. “And why shouldn’t I? It would be in both of our best interests for us to remember where we stand. On either side of a line drawn in the sand. One Luke drew when he became intent on ruining my family,” she said coldly. “And another one called federal law.”
I heard the hurt beneath the ice. Mainly because I invented such a tone, and because I knew Rosie almost better than I knew myself.
But then, sometimes that girl was a mystery even to me, and I wondered what hid behind her easy—if a little crazy—beautiful, ever-changing exterior.
“Luke may have drawn it, but he is quite capable of un-drawing it,” I replied. “Especially for a woman.” I paused. “Especially for you. I’m thinking you’re his Juliet.”
She scoffed. “Yes, because things turned out so well for Romeo and Juliet. Stop trying to change the subject. Doomed romances are not the flavor of the morning. Delicious muscled foreigners are.”
She leaned forward.
“So, at the risk of sounding like a Grease extra, tell me more,” she demanded, with sparkling eyes that betrayed none of the hurt and heartbreak from moments before. “And then tell me that you are going to call him, apologize for a moment of temporary insanity and then get him back in your bed and life.”
I swallowed glass. I itched to do that very thing. The split between the need for him and my self-preservation was agonizing. “There is no more. We had sex. It was great.” Mind-blowing, heart-wrenching, earth-shattering. “It’s out of my system.” He’s under my skin so deep I can’t stop thinking about him. “Now I can carry on with my life.” Now I need to figure out a way to live with the emptiness that he created in a mere handful of moments.
Rosie snorted. “Babe.”
I quirked my brow at her. “Really? You’re going to start speaking in grunts like your brother? Even if you did that and perfected a smoldering look, they ain’t gonna patch you in.” I looked down to her chest, which was aptly on display in a tight V-neck tee. “Because of those. And the fact that you wear skirts. No matter how fabulous.”
She rolled her eyes. “Right, like I want a cut. If I actually did want to be patched in, I’d be in, make no mistake about that. With or without the rule about vaginas.” She gave me a look. “When I want something, I get it. Fuck the rules.”
I gave her a look of mine own, then glanced to the window where Luke was getting inside his cruiser, his aviators pointedly focused on the interior of the café.
“You sure about that?” I asked evenly.
Rosie jutted her chin up in a gesture of stubbornness I knew all too well. She refused to even glance in the direction of the cruiser. “Sure as I am that clogs should never make a comeback, and you should be at home getting your brains fucked out by the hot kiwi,” she replied easily.
I knew my girl. The Luke subject was closed.
For now.
That powder keg was due to explode.
Mine was just closer to the flames.
“He’s already done that,” I sighed. “Now this is why we’re here.”
Rosie’s brows rose. “Babe, I love you, you know that. And apart from the time I had to reassure you that you were frenching right, I’m not going there. Not fucking your brains out. Sorry.” She shrugged apologetically. “Not in me. But if it was, you know I’d hit that.” She gave me a wink.
I rolled my eyes. “No. We’re here to get my brains back in. It’s not happening again. Me and Keltan, that is,” I said firmly.
“And why the fuck not?” Rosie yelled.
The clientele barely flinched. Apart from a family at the booth across from us. The overweight and balding father wearing a stained white tee frowned at Rosie. She blew him a kiss.