Total pages in book: 85
Estimated words: 81333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 81333 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 407(@200wpm)___ 325(@250wpm)___ 271(@300wpm)
“Good luck this season, Branch,” she says quietly.
“Thanks.” I dig for pockets to stick my hands into, but my shorts don’t have any. “Maybe we’ll run into each other sometime.”
“I don’t think that would be good for either of us.” She re-grips the handle of her luggage. “Fantasy Land is over and we’re back to reality.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means . . .” She looks around the room before settling her eyes on me. “It means this weekend was great. See ya.”
I can’t even form a response to that. I stand in the doorway like a chump and watch her walk to her car. A part of me wants to chase her and ask her to stay and another part of me remembers why I don’t chase women. Even her. Finn’s footsteps are what finally breaks my haze.
“Hey,” I say. “They went on out. I’m gonna get a drink.”
Blowing by him, he tosses me a curious glance but doesn’t say a word. I pour a glass of lemonade, smiling at the remnants of the candy apple in the trashcan beside the refrigerator.
She felt so good wrapped around me. The way she teased me, taunted me, slightly mocked me and had me laughing was something I haven’t really experienced before. Sex is usually one of a few things: a power struggle, an interview, the means to an end, a physical need. With Layla this weekend, it was . . . different.
The door shutting rings through the open-aired house and Finn’s shoes squeak against the wood floors. He comes in, scratching his head. “That fucked up my plans for the night.”
Mine, too.
“You think Layla really had to work?” I ask.
“Hell, no. That was a lie.”
“Why would she lie?” I take a drink to keep from making any sort of face that would give Finn a clue as to why I’m so curious.
“I don’t know,” he says, grabbing a beer from the fridge. “My guess is it’s something to do with Callum.”
“That motherfucker,” I grumble.
He shakes his head. “He might’ve called her or texted her or some shit and she just didn’t say anything. I didn’t tell her this, but he called me a couple of nights ago too.”
“For what?”
“Manipulation.” He twists the top off his beer and tosses it into the trash. “Told me how worried he is about her, how she’s not taking the break-up very well and he hopes I’ll keep an eye on her. What he means is he’s afraid she’ll move on and wants me to keep her busy so she doesn’t meet anyone else.”
“Piece of fucking shit.”
Finn downs most of his beer in one gulp as I try to sort this out in my head. He twists the bottle between two fingers.
“Machlan said to apologize to you,” Finn says.
“For what?”
“Apparently there is a story running on Exposé today about you and some chick from Crave.”
The glass slips from my hand and hits the floor with a loud, ominous crack. “Shit,” I mutter, scooping up the large shards with my bare hands.
“He said he knows who yapped to the magazine and he’s banned them from the bar. Some new girl in town but not the one you fucked that night.”
I look at him with a seriousness I rarely do. “I didn’t fuck anyone that night.”
“Sure you didn’t,” he laughs. “Anyway, he said to tell you he’s sorry and he hopes you’ll come back in sometime. Now I’m gonna grab a shower and figure out what the hell to do tonight.”
He walks out and I stand in the center of the kitchen, broken glass in my hand, but with a newfound clarity. Dumping the pieces in the trash, I bust ass to the screened in porch to see a vacant spot next to my car.
I’m tempted to figure out her phone number, even if it means stealing Finn’s phone, and call her to tell her I didn’t fuck anyone . . . then logic sets in.
It doesn’t matter.
It doesn’t fucking matter.
CHAPTER 12
LAYLA
Exposé Top Story: Branching out?
Branch Best and Finn Miller were spotted out and about this weekend at a grand opening for new hotspot Grandiose on Osborne. Owner Selma Puress looked quite cozy nestled between the two, but don’t think we haven’t zoomed in on the location of her right hand a time or sixteen million.
Thanks to songstress GiGi last summer (and her sneaky camera skills), we know Branch is seriously packing. Did he “pack” Selma on Saturday? If so, she’s not telling. Yet. They always do, and we’ll keep you posted when it happens.
Getting into “the flow,” the state of being so engulfed in something you block out everything else, is easy when you have something to avoid. That “something” toys with my daydreams and heats up my nights. Knowing, for my own good, I can’t focus on his cocky smirk, heated gaze, or those sweet, simple touches he did in an almost absentminded way—like it was natural—I’ve poured myself into work since arriving back home.