Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 69333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 347(@200wpm)___ 277(@250wpm)___ 231(@300wpm)
“What an asshole.”
“Yes.” And that’s all I have to say about it.
“I’m sorry you got your heart broken. But he wasn’t worth your time. You know that, right?”
I don’t answer. However, the thing is, I’m more angry than hurt. There might be a small chance I was with someone I didn’t belong with, and maybe he figured it out before me. Which is embarrassing. I’m thirty years old and as clueless as I ever was. Making what I thought was the good and safe choice, only for it to spectacularly blow up in my face.
This conversation needs a change of topic. What I want to ask him about is Angus—the person Grandma enquired after earlier. However, he made his feelings on the subject quite clear. There’s a good chance I’m just curious about the rockstar in general.
“How much do you want to bet your grandmother didn’t buy a mattress for the third bedroom because she didn’t want more than one guest here at a time?” asks Nash.
“There’s no way I’m taking that bet.” I smile and set down the brush in favor of the scissors again. He watches me work in silence for a few minutes. Then I’m done with cutting hair once and for all. “This is about the best I can do,” I say. “The length is reasonably even.”
“My head feels lighter.”
“When’s the last time your hair was this short?”
“Eighteen or so,” he says. “The beard came a few years later. This record company kept coming by and was making all of the right noises. But they wanted to market me as this pretty boy. I wanted people to listen to my music, not look at me.”
“How did that work out?”
“They weren’t happy when I refused to shave the beard. But I thought if it was good enough for Willie Nelson and George Clinton and Billy Gibbons, then excessive facial hair was good enough for me.”
“I know the first two.”
“You know…Billy Gibbons from ZZ Top.”
I shake my head, and oof. The disappointment coming from him is extreme.
He starts in on his beard with the scissors and then the razor. Only this time he doesn’t hold back, and the eventual revelation of his clean-shaven jawline is a thing of splendor. With no hair to hide behind, the man’s beauty is a slap in the face. High forehead, sharp cheekbones, and the most perfect lips.
“How do I look?” he asks.
“Different.”
“Different good?”
I can only nod. There was a time when I knew words. But being confronted with his gorgeous self in my unsober state has stolen them away.
And the way he stares at me in the mirror. The man is a damn flirt. He knows he belongs on a billboard advertising cologne or something. However, without the long hair and beard, he does look like a different person. And he gives me a half smile. A lazy, charming, fuck-up-my-life sort of thing. “Night, June.”
CHAPTER TWO
“Hey, June,” says the deep and smooth voice rising up out of my dreams. “Are you awake?”
“Hmm?”
The side of my bed dips as he sits on the mattress. With calloused fingers, he carefully lifts the hair from my face and asks, “I don’t really have to sleep on the couch, do I?”
I open my blurry eyes and ugh. Of course, moonlight loves the man and shadows can’t resist him. Those thick shoulders and his muscular neck. “What time is it?” I ask.
“Just after two.”
“I was dreaming about you.”
“Oh, yeah.” He grins. “What were we doing?”
“You were lying there looking all pretty, and I was in my car and I ran over you. Then I put it in reverse and backed up and ran over you again because you woke me up.”
His soft laughter shouldn’t be so hot. “Seriously though…I’m too tall and it’s really uncomfortable.”
“Where’s Grandma’s stick?”
“Be reasonable, Junebug. It’s a king-size bed.”
“Go away.”
“I’m just so fucking tired. Please can I sleep here with you?”
I groan.
“What if I buy you a purse or jewelry or a horse or something?”
“What the hell would I do with a horse? My car is already full. I don’t need more stuff.”
But I think of him with his bloodshot eyes, looking like he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in forever. His burnout is real. Grandma obviously trusts the man to be in her house, so that’s got to count for something. I move over with only a small amount of bitching.
“Stay on your side, or I will knee you where it hurts and leave you incapacitated for a week.”
“Thank you. You’re a saint.”
“Whatever.”
He stretches out on his back with a happy sigh. No idea how he makes the lemongrass shampoo and conditioner smell extra nice. And heat radiates off his big body in the cool night air. It’s almost like a lure.
“Your car is full of your stuff?”
“Mm.”
“Sounds like we’re both starting over.”