“Oh, come on!”
-somehow found herself dragged out of the truck and thrown over Garrett’s shoulder before she could roll onto the floor and shove herself beneath the bench and out of his reach forever.
“It won’t be that bad,” Garrett said, lying his incredibly handsome ass off to her.
“Look,” Kristen said against his back, only to pause, take a steadying breath and remind herself that threatening to beat the shit out of him with her backpack wouldn’t help before she continued, “if you pretend that you never saw that text messageand turn around and bring me home, I will do that thing that you seem to really like with my hand.”
When he didn’t say anything, she added, “And my mouth?”
“This is just sad,” Garrett said with a heartfelt sigh that had her grumbling as she glared at his back.
“You know that I’ll never forgive you for this, right?” Kristen mumbled sadly, really wishing that she’d put that minute headstart to better use.
She got cocky.
That’s all there was to it.
As soon as she stumbled into her house, she should have thrown the deadbolt and found a place to wait this out until tomorrow morning, but instead, she’d released a satisfied sigh, dropped her bag by the door, putGhostbusters IIon, and made her way into the kitchen where she took her time making an extra-chocolatey cup of milk, deciding that she’d deserved it.
If she’d known that the traitorous bastard had given Amber his phone number so that he could betray her, she would have made a run for it as soon as she heard the front door open. Instead, she’d added another squirt of chocolate syrup to her glass, debated letting him lick it off her body, and realized her mistake too late.
Which brought up an interesting question...
“Why does Amber have your phone number?” Kristen demanded against his back as he carried her across the large parking lot.
“Besides to make you paranoid?” Garrett asked.
“Besides that,” Kristen said, waving it off with a heavy sigh.
“Because you’re a pain in the ass,” he said, shrugging it off and forcing her to grab hold of the back of his pants with a muttered, “I’m going to die!” when the move shifted her in a way that her soul didn’t appreciate.
“That doesn’t explain why she betrayed me,” Kristen bit out, tightening her hold around his pants and refused to let go.
“I gave her my number after we got back from the camping trip,” Garrett drawled, jolting her slightly as he stepped onto the sidewalk.
“You mean the camping trip from hell that you swore that you would never speak of again? Do you mean that camping trip?” she asked, blinking at his back.
“That would be the one,” Garrett said, sighing heavily as he came to a stop and-
“You bastard!”
-forced her to grab onto his arm when he suddenly leaned over and dropped her on her feet, the move causing blood to rush back down.
“She wanted to ensure that she had a way to periodically remind me of what she would do to me if I ever hurt you again,” Garrett said, taking her by surprise.
“She gave you the talk?” Kristen asked, touched that Amber was looking out for her.
She didn’t have a lot of close friends, definitely no one that cared enough to give a guy the “talk.” Once upon a time, Garrett was the one who looked out for her, protected her, and gave a damn if something happened to her, and now...
She honestly had no idea what he was anymore.
After he broke her heart, something that she was struggling to forgive him for, she kept to herself, focused on writing, and talked to readers. She’d met some wonderful readers over the years. They were incredibly kind, always checked in on her, and treated her like she was just another book addict, which she absolutely adored, but then there were the others...
When her books started to take off, she went to signings, where she met what she’d thought were wonderful people who actually cared about her. It didn’t take long before she realizedthat they only cared about those things that they wanted from her. Some of them wanted to be famous by association and some were aspiring writers hoping to use her to get readers to buy their books, while others simply wanted everything that she had.
Her success suddenly became their success.
When they went out, they never reached for their wallets, suggested signings that she should go to, the same ones that would take her to all those places on their bucket lists. Of course, they offered to go with her out of the goodness of their hearts so that she wouldn’t have to go alone. She actually took a few of them up on their offers, terrified of going by herself only to have them sit on their asses, demand upgrades that they had no intentions of paying for, snap at everyone they deemed beneath them, and ditched her every chance they got only to magically appear when they needed something.
