I stared up at him. He didn't look angry. In fact, he looked almost amused. Or maybe that was just bravado.
Either way, I asked, "What do you mean?"
"I mean, I wanna show you something."
"Really? What?"
His gaze met mine. "That I’m no angel."
It took me a moment to realize what he meant. But when I did, I felt a weight lift from my shoulders. Maybe I didn't know exactly what to say, but I did know what I wanted to do – and that was to love him with every ounce of my being.
So that's what I did. And he loved me back – not just on that night, but on countless nights as the weeks slid by in blissful ignorance of something secret he'd been doing on the side.
No. He wasn't cheating – thank God. But itwassomething that sent me spiraling into all kinds of uncertainty.
Chapter 67
It was a sunny afternoon, and I had the day off. In fact, I'd had lots of days off lately. Probably, I should've been worried, but I wasn't.
The last few months had flown by in a flurry of sex and fun, with only the barest amount of work. It wasn't that Iwantedto be a bum, but somehow, I always ended up with the shortest shifts and very few weekend shifts at all.
And, on the rare times Iwasscheduled to work on a weekend, it never failed that someone begged to take my place. In a way, I could see why. Weekend shifts were, by far, the most profitable because that's when the tips really stacked up.
Normally, I'd hate to give up so much money, but for once in my life, I was barely thinking about it at all.
The reason for that was obvious. In the last few months, my expenses had fallen to nearly nothing. I rarely needed groceries, because Jax was always taking me out. I never needed new clothes, because he was constantly taking me on surprise shopping trips. I wasn't even buying my own lattes anymore, because Jax was constantly surprising me with gift cards to my favorite little coffee shop.
This particular afternoon, I'd just used one of those cards for my daily latte when Kimmie, my favorite barista said, "Oh come on, lemme see it."
She was talking about my new driver's license, which I'd just gotten that day. After months of putting it off, I'd finally given up my Tennessee license, and was officially a Florida resident.
I laughed at Kimmie's request. "No way. It's like the worst picture ever."
"It can't be worse than mine." As proof, she reached under the counter and dug through her purse. A moment later, she handed me her license and said, "See?"
I gave it a quick look. Itwasbad, but not quite as bad as mine. "You're on," I said, handing back her license and digging out my own.
When I handed it over, she studied it for a long silent moment before saying, "Wow. Thatisbad."
She was right, of course. In the picture, my skin had this weird greenish hue, like I was from outer space or something. The only thing missing were the antennas.
Kimmie was still looking at my license. "Hey, you wanna hear something funny?"
"What?"
"You're living in my cousin's old place."
"No kidding?"
"Oh yeah." She pointed to the license. "I recognize the address. Man, she loved that apartment – hated to give it up though."
"Then why did she?" I asked.
"It was the rent," Kimmie said. "Three grand a month?" She gave a low whistle. "Hard to affordthaton a bookkeeper's salary."
I paused. "Wait, three thousand? Are you sure?" She had to be mistaken. Allie and I were paying less than half that amount.
"Oh yeah," Kimmie said. "I told her she was biting off more than she could chew, but she was insistent, said she'd get a roommate or something. She even askedme, but there was no way I could affordthat, or rather, half-that, I guess, since we'd be splitting it."
