Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 107118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
But she wouldn’t go. I licked my lips, still tasting her on them. I’d heard them fall to sleep. I’d heard the soft breathing coming from her mouth. And I’d had to go. She’d been drinking. Cried herself to the point of exhaustion. But something called to me, compelled me to go into that room, a damn magnet pulling me in. The sight of my best friend and her on the couch hit me harder than I’d expected. Because I should have been there with them. I belonged there with them. Every cell in my body told me so. But I couldn’t do it. She’d been through enough. At some point, whatever gris-gris followed me around would get her too. We could never be together. We just didn’t fit.
I had no fucking idea why Cowboy even stuck around. It was only a matter of time before I ruined him too. More than I already had, that is. Fucker was a glutton for punishment.
People thought that times had moved on. That people were more liberal in their views, didn’t give a shit about race or religion or whoever the fuck you loved. But in our fucked-up world, that was bullshit.
I’d seen it.
I’d lived it.
Fuck, I was a product of it.
Her lips had been as soft as I knew they would be. She tasted just as fucking sweet too. I wanted to wrap her in my arms and tell her that this fucking Garcia would never touch her again. But I’d been strong. I’d stood and turned away before the little voice in my head told me to let her in.
But not before I’d seen Cowboy watching me. I didn’t know if the fucker had faked sleep or had woken up when I came through, but I’d seen the look on his face. He wanted it. He wanted me to just get over my secrets, what forever held me back, and be with her.
. . . and Hush, if he would just let me.
“Fuck!” I shouted into the pink sky, head thrown back and fists clenched. I ran my hand over my arms and saw all the evidence I needed for knowing I couldn’t go there with her. And fuck, another thought clouded my mind. Something I knew one day would come. But that I had dreaded with every fiber of my being.
It was time to cut Cowboy loose.
He was my best friend. He was pretty much the only person I had in the whole world. But I was holding him back. He told Sia that she and I were lonely. And fuck, that was true. But I knew he was too. Years of following me around, fucking sluts with me, never on his own . . . because of me.
Cowboy didn’t need threesomes to get off. Christ, half the time I didn’t even know if he enjoyed them. He did them because I didn’t know who the fuck I was without him.
I saw the way he looked at Sia. It was different. He’d never looked at any bitch like that before. Sure, he’d shown interest in others, but never like this. I knew from the minute we met her at Ky’s wedding that she was a game-changer. There’d been a spark between them.
Fuck, she was different for me too.
But I knew he felt some sense of loyalty to me. One that I selfishly knew he would forgo his own happiness for. It was why he was pushing me so much with Sia. Then he’d get to be with the girl of his dreams and still be there for his fucking headcase of a co-dependent best friend.
The sound of a motorcycle rumbled behind me in the distance. I didn’t even turn around. I knew it was Cowboy. He shouldn’t have left Sia all alone. But I’d checked the perimeters over and over in the past few hours. There was nothing out there. She was safe.
After last night, I knew he’d come and find me.
Cowboy brought the second Harley to a stop beside me. I kept my attention forward, on the sun now almost fully in the sky. My hands fucking shook. Shook at the thought of letting Aubin go. Because that’s who he was to me. Aubin Breaux. The kid I met as a teen, the one who stuck by my side when everything went to absolute shit and life knocked me the fuck down.
“I saw you,” he said, thawing the awkward silence that had built around us. I didn’t say anything. I felt Cowboy pull on my arm. He sucked in a pained breath. When I looked over at him, he was holding the red welts from that fucking bronc rein. They were blistered and looked fucking horrendous. “You listening to me?” he asked, shaking off his pain.
“It doesn’t mean anything.”
“Fuck off, Val. It means everything!”