I'm at the bottom of the stoop when she calls out. “Oh, and Cillian.”
I turn back to find her leaning against one of the porch's supporting pillars. “Yeah?”
She runs her fingers across the leather crisscrossing over her ribcage. “It's not just an accessory. And if you want, it can absolutely be an invitation.”
My self-control had already been dangling by a very thinthread. Now that I’m imagining everything that invitation might entail? Fuck.
“Good to know,” I manage to say. “Now get inside and drink some water.”
She smirks wickedly. “Yes, sir.”
Maybe she was right to warn me about the dangers of hurricanes.
CHAPTER 8
Toni
I readCillian'stext for approximately the hundredth time in the last fifteen minutes.
Cillian
I know tomorrow is a Monday, but any chance you're free during the day?
When he said next week, I didn't think he meant Monday. An invite for Saturday or even Wednesday would have been enough time to come up with a solid excuse to let him down gently. Tell him I appreciated the gesture, but it was a bad idea. All of it.
But forty-eight hours after seeing him? The memory of his voice and his kiss and his...HIM-ness, still fresh?
Exasperated with the situation, myself, and the clothing pile on my bed that I'd been in a losing battle with for no less than eight days, I fling my phone away from me with a groan. Plopping on the edge of my mattress, I slide to the floor.
It's a short distance since my bed frame still sits unopened in the corner. My whole apartment looks like it belongsto a gay 20-year-old frat boy. Chaotic. Unkept. But hey, there's a pink couch.
My ass hits the floor and, of course, my phone chooses that moment to vibrate from somewhere within the mountain of clothes behind me.
“Excellent,” I say to no one.
I manage to excavate my phone before Belle's video call goes to voicemail.
“Video calls require at least an hour's warning,” I say, returning to my position on the floor.
She scoffs, leaning the phone on her counter as she pulls her long brown hair into a ponytail. “I've seen you trash can punch drunk. Sunday goblin mode is nothing.” Her East Texas accent makes me oddly homesick for a place I hate, or maybe I just miss her. She squints at the screen. “Girl, is that the same laundry?—”
“Please. I am suffering. Don't judge me.”
She laughs. “Ok. Ok. Honestly, my recycling pile isn't much better.”
Belle, at least, has a legitimate reason for being a mess. Watching your husband die over two years was a fucking horrible way to kick off your thirties. In comparison I have nothing to bitch about.
“So tell me what happened!” She insists.
“Nothing.” I groan. “Just Hurricane Toni bullshit.”
“Come on, I'm living vicariously through you here.”
She still spent most of her time on the ranch she'd shared with her late husband. Fifteen acres about an hour outside of Austin at the foot of the Hill Country, a place they'd planned on turning into a rehab center for horses and people alike.
Now, there were no horses or people—just Belle.
“You could come visit me.” I hate her being all alone out there.
