That was better. “Easy enough to take on the style of someone you admire,” Sam said. He’d done it himself, when he was younger. “Who is it?”
She marched along the sidewalk, her boots fragmenting the puddles into rainbow shards of light. “Grayson Kettering. He... He was at KU when I was in the program there.”
“But you left.”
She averted her face. “To get away from him.”
Him.Grayson Kettering.
“Wait.” Sam lengthened his stride to catch up. He owned a newsagents. He read the papers he stocked, including the books and entertainment sections. “Dee Gale. You’re never...?”
She stopped then, in front of one of the fancy houses lining the street, her eyes dark in her pale face. “Destiny Gayle.”
“Fuck.”
“Yeah. We did.” Her gaze dropped to her boots. “So...”
He had to say something. “Good for you. Leaving, I mean.You don’t want to be in Kansas anyway. Not when you could be in Ireland.” She didn’t look at him. “All the great writers are Irish,” he added.
That dragged her head up. “I’m not great.” Her smile was wan. “According to Dr.Ward, I’m barely competent.”
“At least you’re writing,” Sam pointed out. “You didn’t let that bastard stop you from doing what you want. Going after what you want.” It was more than Sam had ever done. But he didn’t say that.
Dee frowned, as if she’d heard him anyway. “You could, too,” she said. “If you reapplied now, you could—”
He kissed her, which at least shut her up.
There was a desperation to this kiss that hadn’t been there before. Clutching hands, open mouths. As if they both needed to get something right and for one moment it was this. His heart pounded in his ears. She inhaled, quick and sharp, as she broke away.
Sam watched as she ran up the stairs, Cinderella in reverse.
He had never felt less like a prince in his life.
Thirteen
So, cowgirl,” Reeti said. “Are you back in the saddle again?”
I almost spurted chai through my nose. “Nope. There was no riding last night. Sam walked me home.”
“I thought maybe you would go to his place. Did he kiss you good night, at least?”
I hid my hot face in my mug. Thank God we were in Reeti’s condo and not Sam’s shop, where anyone—his sister, his mother,Sam—might hear us.
“He did!” Reeti crowed. “Was it any good? He looks like he’d be a good kisser.”
The memory of Sam’s kiss surged, hard and fast and low. His tongue in my mouth. My hands in his hair. My lips still tingled, and not from Reeti’s liberal use of ginger in the tea. “It was. He is.”
“I sense a ‘but’ coming.”
“No ‘but.’ I feel like I’m in a rom-com.Eat, Pray, Love. Under the Tuscan Sun.Sad Girl goes to Europe and finds her mojo with Hot Irish Poet.”
“Soon to be a major motion picture,” Reeti joked.
LikeDestiny Gayle.
My lungs emptied. I stared at her, stricken.
“Oh shit,” Reeti said. “I wasn’t thinking. Sorry.”
