Hesmiled through his regret. “I guarantee it’s been longer for me.”
“Yeah,right.” I ran my eyes over him briskly in silent judgement, and gave him anaccusing look that he ignored. Instead, he leaned down to kiss me on theforehead before taking a few more steps back, putting too much distance betweenus.
“Youdeserve someone who will respect you. Someone who will make you feel important.Not some horny prick who will use you in a parking lot.”
Ipouted. “Well, maybe Iwantsomeone to use me. Maybe I want to have anight of hot, meaningless sex.”
Brandonchuckled that throaty laugh that sent waves of frustrating pleasure through mybody. “If that’s what you want, then I’m not your guy, I’m sorry.” He went toturn and walk away into the darkness. “I hope I see you soon, Holly.”
Somuch for handsome men.
Irolled my eyes sarcastically, and wished him a good night. I opened the door tothe van and hopped in, left alone to process everything that had happenedthroughout the course of the day, and honestly, I hadn’t the slightest cluewhere to begin. But, I thought as I put the key into the ignition, the wine inthe fridge seemed like a pretty good place to start.
CHAPTERSIX
BRANDON
The glowing screen of thelaptop stared me down,the blinking curser of my word processor taunting my writer’s block with everyflash. For two whole hours since returning home from whatever strange phenomenonhad occurred at the bookstore, I had attempted to work on the fourthinstallment in theBreckenridgeseries. My busy brain just wasn’t havingany of that nonsense, despite the urgency that Nick and my publisher hadstressed on me just days earlier. They wanted the next book, they said. Theywanted to keep the momentum going, they said. And while I understood all ofthat, I couldn’t get myself fired up enough to add anything more to the alreadyexisting 50,000 words.
Iblamed her.Holly.
Sincethe day we met, she had haunted my mind with the memory of her smile,whispering to me like a restless ghost. The sadness hidden in the golden flecksof her eyes begged for a reason to smile more often, cried for a reason tosparkle in the magical way they did when she laughed. God, to be the man tomake sure she never stopped having a reason to smile …
Witha discouraged sigh, I admitted defeat and closed the laptop.Maybe I’m notcut out for this anymore, I thought, and stood from the high-backed leatheroffice chair. I took a quick glance around the circular room lined with custombookshelves that hugged the walls before walking my way to the leather sofa inthe middle of the floor. I laid across the length of the couch, shoving a suedethrow pillow under my head and resting my feet on the arm rest. My eyes staredupward towards the wrought iron chandelier, the soft glow of the bulbs shiningdown upon me like the stars I seldom saw living in the heart of suburban LongIsland, and my thoughts drifted to those minutes in the Reade’s parking lot.
Shehad kissed me, and dammit, I kissed back. My own willing participation hadshocked me. But what was more startling was I had been two pairs of pants awayfrom having sex with her right there in the parking lot, and without a care ofwho might have been watching. A careless act of carnal behavior on my part,only stopped by my respect for her, and reluctance to feel for someone new;notthe possibility of some cell phone photograph winding up on the internet thenext day. Because with her, I realized, I wasn’t B. Davis, famed author of afantasy book series that rivalled the likes of Tolkien and Martin. This wasblatantly apparent to me when I realized I hadn’t once mentioned any of thepersonal details of my career to her. It wasn’t a secret I had purposelyhidden—just genuine forgetfulness that was perhaps a subconscious effort tokeep myself from being anything more than Brandon the Nice Man.
God,what am I doing?
Iknew that she was in the process of mending a broken heart and making sense ofher fragmented life, and of course, I was more than aware that I was a troubledman on the verge of permanent celibacy, living in a vacant shell of a house.And while a small glint of optimism whispered to me that we could be exactlywhat each other needed to pick up the pieces and super glue them back together,that required so much work, and I wasn’t sure I was prepared to put in thehours.
Ipulled myself up from the couch and headed out of the room, taking anotherquick glance around the space—full of memorabilia, pictures, and books fromthroughout my short career—before leaving B. Davis behind, and I closed thedoors.
Ipulled the fitted t-shirt over my head as I walked down the hall, casting itaside on the floor of my bedroom before flipping on my nightstand lamp. Tolkienpromptly jumped from the bed to sniff the garment. I watched her as I unzippedmy jeans, and laughed when she backed away abruptly with repulsion. She turnedto look at me with what I was sure was judgement, and oh, perhaps just a bit ofjealousy.
“Don’tworry. You’re still the only girl in my life,” I said to her, bending over toscratch her behind the ears, while ignoring the stirring in my heart thatwished that weren’t true.
Onmy way to the four-poster bed, I caught a glimpse of myself wearing nothing butmy boxer briefs in the floor-length mirror. While I didn’t fancy myself a vainman, I was never ashamed to admit that I was proud of the way I looked. It hadtaken years to achieve that amount of muscle definition, and hours of pain toearn the tattoos that covered much of my torso. But that had its own downfalls.It was also my appearance that had set me apart from other authors. Few of themhad received countless modeling offers from various companies, and I was fairlycertain that most had never been made to pose shirtless for magazine covers. Itwas this type of publicity that I was convinced brought in the marriageproposals on social media and the grabby fans at various events, although Nickinsisted it was the “killer jawline and the dreamy eyes.” So, what did I know.
Tolkienjumped onto the plush comforter and turned herself around several times,kneading her paws into the fabric before she settled down for what was probablyher hundredth nap of the day. I threw on an old t-shirt and a pair of flannelpajama pants before climbing into bed after her.
Leftin darkness, my thoughts sprung back to life with a vengeance. I wanted nothingmore than to flip a switch and turn my brain off, just long enough to allow forslumber to settle in. I could have dreamt about her and have been fine withthat, just to have gotten some sleep, but God, I couldn’t stop thinking abouther—about Holly and her lips and her laugh—and I couldn’t decide if I hatedmyself for it or not.
CHAPTERSEVEN
HOLLY
"So, uh, where did you go lastnight?"
Iguess I should have expected I would be bombarded with that question once I hadwoken up the next day. I just wasn't anticipating it happening as soon as I steppedout of my room. Both Esther and Liz rushed at me, cups of hot tea in hands. Ipushed past them as I walked into the living room. My groupies followed methrough to the kitchen where I grabbed myself a refreshing bottle of water,which had a much lower alcohol content than I felt I needed. Grabbing adoughnut, I slumped into a chair at the table.
“So?”Esther asked as she and Liz sat in the chairs beside me. She clapped her handstogether in prayer, and added, “Please tell me this story involves a handsomeman.”
“Yourwish is my command,” I grumbled, and began to tell the story, and it felt likejust that—a story. Not something that could happen to me, and Liz seemed toagree with her mouth stretched into a dreamy smile. "And things endedbefore they could go too far." I hastily concluded the story about mynight of sort of passion and gulped down some more water, wishing so bad thatit had turned itself into wine at some point. Liz sighed, and I turned to her.“What?”
“It’sjust so perfect,” she sighed again, resting her chin into the palm of her hand.
“Um,how? I made out with a stranger, and nothing came of it.” It was so much lessglamorous when I thought about it that way.
