She paid her tab before turning her narrowed eyes on me. “I’m single because Iwantto be.”
Something told me that was a lie. “Or maybe it’s because you have the personality of a blow-up doll.”
“I’m sure you know a lot about those, huh?” She smirked. “But I bet you couldn’t even leave one of them satisfied.” She turned and walked away, but not without throwing one last jab over her shoulder. “With or without socks.”
“Oh, howoriginalof you,” I mockingly called out, but she didn’t look back. I scoffed as I turned back to the bar, downing the rest of my drink before paying my tab and calling it a damn night.
I walked inside my apartment just before midnight and tossed my keys into the basket on the counter before heading to my room to change. My place was a quintessential bachelor pad—dark colors throughout, sleek and sophisticated. I stripped off my clothes, threw on a pair of sweatpants, and went to the bathroom to brush my teeth before returning and flopping back on my bed.
I let out a breath as I stared up at the ceiling before rubbing my face with a groan. Morgan had been right about one thing. I was frustrated.Morethan frustrated. This slump I was in was completebullshit.
If things kept going the way they were, I was going to be walking around with one arm looking like Popeye from my nights spent with Rosy Palm and her five friends.
Chapter 4
I stoodin the baking aisle at the store, scanning the boxes of pudding on Thursday evening. My mom was making some kind of dessert for one of her agents—she was a real estate broker—whose birthday was tomorrow. She got home and started baking before realizing she was short one box of chocolate pudding and called to ask if I could stop on my way home from work, grab one, and swing by to drop it off at the house. I’d been searching for ten minutes now and couldn’t find what she was looking for.
I sighed, pulled out my phone, and called her. “Hi, honey.”
“Hi. So, I’m here at the store, but all I see is instant.”
“No, I need the cook and serve kind.”
“I understand that, but all they have in chocolate pudding is the instant kind.”
“Okay, can you grab me some cocoa powder? I’ll just make my own. No big deal.”
I moved a couple of aisles to the cocoa powder and grabbed a container. “Anything else?”
“No. I have everything else to make it. Thank you again.”
“You’re welcome.”
I headed to the other side of the store to grab some stuff for myself since I was there—makeup remover wipes, toothpaste, body wash, and other little things I knew I needed to stock up on.
I was looking through face creams when a very different cream—hemorrhoid, to be exact—stood out among the others. “You don’t belong here…”
“Talking to face creams now, are we?”
I stiffened at the sound of the voice and slowly glanced up to see Wesley standing near the end of the aisle, wearing a smirk. “Are you lost?”
“Nope. Guess one of the downsides of having an apartment building across the way from yours in a small suburban area is that this is the only store nearby and happens to be the one everyone goes to, includingyou.”
Wesley lived in the sister apartment complex of mine that sat on the other side of the pond my terrace had a view of. I’d moved into mine first, and I was pretty sure he only knew about the other complex because of Gabe, but I never cared enough to ask. He was far enough away from me; if he’d been in the same building, I would have likely moved out already.
“Yes, I suppose you’re right about that being adownside. You could always move…I hear Europe is wonderful. I’ll even throw you a going away party.”
He was about to respond but stopped himself, and I watched his eyes flicker up to the other end of the aisle behind me. I followed his gaze to see two women round the corner, then looked back at him with a knowing expression as I stood.
“Things are going so bad for you that you’ve resulted in stalking women in stores now? Howsad.”
“I don’t have to stoop as low as stalking, thank you very much.”
“Yeah? And why else would you be in theface creamaisle at a store?”
“You’re aware men use face creams as well, right?”
“Yeah.” I smirked. “And they’re in the next aisle over. Notthisone.”
