“But you broke mine.” I couldn’t talk louder than a whisper, because I’d break.
“I’m so sorry, Angel,” he said. “So goddamned sorry.”
He ventured closer, and when he sat next to me, I didn’t go anywhere. I took him in—the scent of the laundry soap on his shirt, the temptation of his skin. Even a foot away, he was so warm, my flesh absorbing him.
“I knew I’d blown it,” he said, “so I decided to make the most of what I had left, even though I missed you more than I’ve ever missed anything or anyone.”
He swallowed, and I realized that he was just as affected as I was. He hadn’t left because he’d wrapped up any bet or because he was incapable of having a relationship.
I turned slightly toward him, just enough to see him out of the corner of my eye. Dark blond hair, muscles . . . Micah.
Here.
He hunched as he talked. “I tried to get Marvin into a facility where he’d have some help. He didn’t last long, and he took off out of state. That’s how it’ll always be with him, so I wrote him off. But the thing was, I couldn’t stay away from you, even if you never wanted anything to do with me again.” A muscle in his jaw ticked. “I got a job in a car repair shop here and, on my own time, I go back to Aidan Falls to fix up hopeless messes into vehicles that work. On weekends, I help out the twins. With everything, I’ve made some cash on the side so I could get myself an apartment, and I’m aiming to check out the community college nearby.” He risked a gaze at me. “That conference the twins sent me to made me realize that there’s a whole world of business I haven’t been looking at. You made me realize that, too. And I’m capable of being a part of that world, believe it or not.” He laughed. “Who would’ve ever thought?”
“I’m glad for you, but the whole time you were doing all that, I thought—”
“That I’d tossed you away? No. It took me a while to know I handled it wrong. Going cold turkey with us didn’t do any good because I feel more strongly about you today than ever.”
I nearly toppled into his gaze—gray and green, green and gray. There seemed to be a balance of color and reality now, a mixture of a shade so beautiful that I wanted to immerse myself in it. In him.
I hadn’t responded yet, and he must’ve taken that as a bad sign. He stood, assuming that guarded posture with his hands under his armpits. But then he lowered his arms to his sides, as if he realized that the old him would’ve resorted to that stance, battling off a world that he’d thought was against him, cynically charming his way through it.
“Maybe I don’t deserve you,” he said, his voice strained, “but I want to try. If you’d just let me.”
With a surge of love that’d never died, I let myself go.
Maybe I should’ve been smarter about it, letting him stew some more, but I couldn’t. I embraced him, burying my face in his stomach, holding him so hard that I thought I might crush him.
Micah. Here. Really, truly here.
This wasn’t neediness—this was taking what I loved. He’d been wrong to do what he did, but I wasn’t going to let him go now that he had his act together and had gathered up his courage to find me again. He’d put his heart on the line, and I didn’t have it in me to crush it, just to make a point.
He enfolded me in his arms, too, desperately. “I can’t live without you, Shelby.”
“Me, too. I tried, but . . .” I shook my head, bringing myself harder against him. Tears were wetting his shirt, but they were the happiest tears I’d cried in months.
He made me happy as much as he’d made me sad, but he was here.
And I was his again.
“We deserve each other,” I said, looking up at him. “God, I love you so much, Micah.”
He confessed his own love by sweeping me up and into a kiss that made me bloom again, my heart and my soul opening to him, basking in his light.
A second chance was all we needed, and we were going to go beyond just a summer together. Me and my Micah. Me and the guy who was never supposed to amount to much.
The player who’d become my everything.
If you enjoyed this story, please consider leaving a review at Goodreads or any reader site or blog you frequent.
You can read about what happens when Jadyn sends an accidental text to someone who might just be a billionaire who disappeared from the public eye in Sugarbaby, available May 2015 from InterMix—keep reading for a preview!
“Not to be rude, but is there anyone else here that can serve us?”
I stood at the side of the community-bench table with my order pad and pencil, trying not to let my jaw unhinge and hit the floor of the Angel’s Seat Café. My customers just stared at me with fixed smiles.
I knew dang well who they were—alumni from Aidan Falls High—and they were back in town for the big Homecoming game this weekend. But most of all, they were fans of Rex Alvarez, former star quarterback and current big man on campus out of town at Texas-U.
Oh . . . and former boyfriend of mine.
I was used to this kind of disrespect. A girl couldn’t mess up in the epic style I had by stepping out on Rex one drunken, stupid night and expect to be loved by all of his admirers. His many, many admirers.
So I didn’t ask why station six wanted someone else to wait on them. No, sir, I merely smiled in return like a blue-collar sweetie as my throat tightened around the words I needed to say.
“You bet.” I stuffed my order pad into the apron tied at my waist and tucked the pencil behind my ear. “Someone’ll be right with you.”
“Thank you”—the crew-cut guy squinted at my nametag as if he didn’t know who I was—“Jadyn.” Then he ignored me and started chatting with his girlfriend like nothing had gone down.
As I turned around, my temper brewed under my skin, but I kept it in check, still smiling as I passed the long tables filled with pregame diners. The aroma of locavore Tex-Mex food spiced the air, sharp and heavy, while the sound of Ryan Adams filled my ears, too loud, too overwhelming. Everything was pounding at me while, in my peripheral vision, the coffee bar blurred by with its repurposed train car wood, then the railroad lanterns, the potbelly stove, then my coworker Carley as I blew past her toward the kitchen. From the way her eyes widened at the sight of me, I knew I’d better get to the back before I let loose with a few choice cusses. I didn’t curse much, but this seemed like a good time.
“Would you take station six?” I asked between my teeth. Bravo for holding back the cuss.
“Sure.” She followed me into the steamy kitchen. The owner, Jackie Carson, didn’t even look up from plating food.
“I appreciate it,” I said.
“What’s the problem?” Carley was still on my tail.
“They’re here for Homecoming.”
Carley had moved to town right before spring, but that didn’t mean she was well versed in all things Aidan Falls, even if she’d heard a little something about Rex and the drama that’d happened around him last summer.
I shouted to Jackie. “Is it okay if I take a short break?”
My boss gave me a thumbs up, her short blond hair all over the place as she called for pickup. “Carley!”
“Be right there.” Carley followed me to the back screen door, tugging at my Angel’s Seat Café T-shirt to slow me down. “Does station six hold one of those grudges against you? Or are they just being rednecks and . . . ?” She gestured to me.
She didn’t have to say a word about the color of my skin—light brown, half-and-half. I’d grown up with that skin my whole life, dealing with sneers from some, unwelcome comments from others about my white dad and black mom, even though kids were always careful about being too vicious since my parents had gotten in that crash near the fairgrounds when I was seven, leaving me to the care of my great uncle, bless his soul. Most of this town had always accepted me, though, especially at church, back when I�
��d gone. Also, we lived a stone’s throw from Austin. There were definitely a few more tolerant pockets here than most places—if you looked in the right spots.
But Carley was ready to take up my back for any slight. She was a California girl with rosy-tan skin, long, straight brunette hair, and big liquid dark eyes, so she wasn’t from around these parts.
I opened the back screen door to the covered patio, where wooden benches lined the concrete. The fall sun crept through the awning slats, a breath of the brightness I needed.
“Station six is only defending their god,” I said to Carley. “That’s all. So go back in there and kill them with kindness. They might be good tippers.”
Carley rested her fingers on the door handle. “What’re they even doing here at the Angel’s Seat if they’re fans of Rex? I mean, the café’s owned by the mom of another ex-girlfriend who pissed off Rex, right? So why wouldn’t they go somewhere else?”
“Maybe they just heard about Jackie’s amazing food and decided to brave the cooties around here.”
“Or maybe they came with the intention of being asses to you.” Carley sighed. “Did you get this level of crap at Kroger when you worked there?”
“Rex’s influence reaches everywhere.” I shrugged. “That’s not why I left the Kroger, though. Jackie needed help, and she was willing to schedule around my classes. Besides, the tips here are good, especially with the organic wine list that draws in the out-of-towners.”
“Thank God for Yelp, right?” Carley opened the door to go back inside. “It’s crazy how people in this town choose their sides. It’s not like LA here at all.”
“It’s Aidan Falls, baby. We might as well be another planet.”
She smiled at me before she went back inside.
I hadn’t known Carley all that long; she’d been hired only a week ago, but she was easygoing and seemed like she could be a friend. We were even going to a classic movie tonight at the Ritz with her next-door neighbor, Diana. But sometimes you trip over the most interesting parts and people in your life. And sometimes you just downright fall.
She was a good kind of trip, though. I could tell right off the bat.
Which reminded me . . . As long as I was on a break from the morons, I needed to text Diana about meeting up at the Ritz. I also had to make a call to my second cousin, the only family I had left after my great uncle’s death. If you could call Delroy family. But talking about Uncle Joseph’s finances and how he’d left almost everything to his son and a smaller sum to me, his actual caretaker, wouldn’t exactly bring my mood from surly to perky.
It wasn’t that I was resentful about being shafted—I hadn’t taken care of Joseph just to wheedle my way into an inheritance. It was that his death was still fresh with me, and I hated talking money at a time like this. He’d had his heart attack over a month ago, and he’d been the closest thing I’d had to a parent. I supposed I was probably the closest thing he’d had to family, too, with me taking care of him these past few years after his health had started deteriorating and with Delroy running off to New York to follow a big career as a corporate lawyer . . .
I took the pencil out of my hair, then let my dark curls out of their clip, restyling, redoing, putting myself back together. Nothing was going to ruin my night—I was going out with new friends, after all—and I sat down, telling myself to breathe.
Just breathe.
Don’t think about missing Uncle Joseph. Don’t think about all those Homecoming fans coming in for the game tonight. Don’t think about how desperate you are to make more money and get out of this town and go to Texas-U next year, now that you won’t have to stick to the community college . . .
Better. Much, much better.
I took my phone out of my apron pocket, realizing that I didn’t have Diana’s number in my contacts. I’d scribbled it on a scrap of paper at home, but, hey, I pretty much remembered the digits from when Carley had given them to me earlier. And since I was barely buddies with Diana yet—only buddy enough to remember from high school that she was kind of a gossipy loose cannon who loved to shop—I texted instead of called, entering her number from my memory of what I’d written earlier. It was easier than bugging Carley about it right now.
Jadyn
I just need to jump in the shower after work.
How’s 7pm?
Without another look, I sent the message, then switched to my phone contacts, where I debated about that call to my cousin. I did have two stations to see to in the café, and taking a long break wasn’t going to get me better tips.
Forget it then.
I stood from the bench just as my phone vibrated with an incoming text. Okay, I’d check Diana’s response before I got back to work. Really. Then it was all about service . . .
The message on my screen showed the phone number I’d used for Diana, but when I read what was written below it, I frowned.
555-8465
I’m happy you have such a robust sex life, but do you tell every stranger all the details?
Huh?
For the second time in about fifteen minutes, I just stood there, processing what was going on right in front of me. Why was Diana talking about my sex life, as nonexistent as it even was? And why had she called herself a stranger? We hadn’t hung out a lot, but “strangers” was kind of a strong word . . .
As I realized what was going on, a shot of panic jolted me. Oh, God.
I checked the phone number, rechecked the text I’d sent, and . . .
At the sight of the hastily typed message, I plopped right back down onto the bench in horror when I saw that I’d made a key typo.
No—it was a sext-po.
Jadyn
I just need to hump in the shower after work.
How’s 7pm?
Oh. God.
My heart beat a little faster as I wondered about the “stranger” who’d received the horny message, which could also be translated as an invitation. But that was nothing next to how my pulse howled as another text popped onto the screen.
555-8465
Didn’t mean to embarrass you, but I thought you might want to know that you didn’t reach your boyfriend or girlfriend or . . . whoever, LOL. I suspect that there’s even a typo here and you didn’t mean what it looks like you mean. Maybe you were going to meet your sweet grandmother for dinner or something, and it’d be a shame to leave her waiting in front of the restaurant.
Well, that was considerate, and all I had the guts to do was text a mortified “thanks” back. Then, before I could think too hard on it, I did what I usually did—tucked whatever was bothering me away, out of sight out of mind, as I shoved my phone into my apron pocket.
After I went back to work, I felt it buzz against my leg with yet another text, telling me that whoever had received that sext wasn’t done quite yet.
Crystal Green is a RITA-nominated romantic fiction author. As Chris Marie Green, she has written fantasy novels including the Vampire Babylon series and the Jensen Murphy, Ghost for Hire series, as well as the new adult SHE CODE books. As Christine Cody, she wrote the supernatural post-apocalyptic western Bloodlands series.
Looking for more?
Visit Penguin.com for more about this author and a complete list of their books.
Discover your next great read!
Honeytrap Page 28
