Page 68 of Dirty Player
“I didn’t want to talk to you.”
“Why?” A small head tilt, a very brief look of confusion flashed through his eyes. “I said we’d talk later. That I wanted to see you.”
My eyes went wide. The urge to slam the door in his face was strong. I withheld it, barely. “How was Serena?”
“Shit.” His face scrunched up, and with one hand he removed his hat, smoothed back his hair unnecessarily, and flopped the cap back on his head. “I’d like to talk to you. But don’t avoid me like that. It made me worried.”
His eyes narrowed, as if the admission came before he meant it to, as if he wasn’t used to giving a crap about people.
Perhaps he wasn’t. He was great in bed. Fun to talk to. He was also strung tight and intense and not what anyone would ever call laid back, despite his current appearance.
“I would think by the way I didn’t answer calls or texts earlier, you’d get the hint I didn’t want that to happen. That doesn’t give you the right to come down here and bang on my door.”
His jaw tightened. “I was worried. When Beaux didn’t know where you were…” Another hat-removal-hand-swipe.
A sense of disgust rolled through me. Immaturity wasn’t the way I wanted to deal with obstacles. Neither was running. But staying had never worked out so great for me in the past, either. In all honesty, I didn’t think I’d hear from him at all.
“Come on in.” I relented and moved back, allowing him access to Stamped. Like the first time, he wandered to the display cases, most of them empty since I’d sold so much. The more expensive pieces were on display because I didn’t think they would do well at a street fair. People tended to like less expensive things they could pick up while they wandered, so I’d left the larger, more elegant and intricate designs in their cases, showing them in photographs in a display book.
I was taking them the next day—the last day of the show. I’d had too much interest.
“Have you been working all night?” he asked, dragging his eyes to mine. They lacked the anger he had carried in them earlier, and now he looked tired.
Dark circles under his eyes, a slight slump to his shoulders. The man looked like he needed to go to sleep at least four hours ago.
Remorse for my behavior flickered down my spine.
“I can’t get over how talented you are.”
His praise washed over me like a gentle caress. “I’m sorry about my phone. I turned it off, but I shouldn’t have done that.” I waved it in the air. “At the very least, it’s not safe.”
“And you were pissed because I took off after Serena.”
He laid it out there straight, no hesitancy, like he had nothing to hide.
“We’d been talking before you came up. You hadn’t ever mentioned her, although Beaux told me some. I was waiting for you to bring her up, though. It seemed like something you’d share with someone...”
My voice trailed. I had no idea how to finish that thought. Three weeks before, we were strangers; a week before, we’d ended a ridiculous timeline. Now…I had no idea what we were except great fuck-buddies and maybe friends.
“Someone I’m in a relationship with?”
He took a step toward me, but my eyes stayed fixed on where he’d just been. If he was expecting me to put that out there, I was too vulnerable. Too afraid.
“Shannon.”
It was just a word, rolling off luscious lips that could be firm and sweet, soft and gentle, and hard and demanding. It sounded like a song.
“What?”
“I was going to tell you about her. I didn’t know how. She’s not someone I talk about—like to think about, for that matter.”
He tugged off his hat again, another swipe of his hair. Unable to help myself, I hid a smile. Apparently, he wasn’t the only one who played with their hair when they were nervous.
I made it easier for him, stepping aside like I always did. “You don’t owe me anything, or any explanations. It’s not your fault it hurt me when you walked away like that.”
Looking so lost, like he just had to be with her.
“That’s not it. It’s not at all, but the story is long and twisted. Are you done here?”
