However, when I had surprised Lexi, she hadn’t thrown herself in my arms. Instead the incident had ended with her screaming at me.
Better than the alternative.
You mean the alternative where I made love to her on the towel?
Except that wasn’t what I had wanted to do. I had wanted to fuck her ruthlessly, endlessly.
It’s a sickness.
I pushed myself into a run, trying to outrace the thoughts of lust of her freckled body, of her backside when she’d bent over.
A white van passed me, engine clunking as it drove down the street, windows dark.
I frowned at it. I was always suspicious of vans, for good reason. I tracked it as it turned on a side street.
You’re not going to outrun it.
Maybe I should buy a motorcycle, but then I wouldn’t be able to run myself to exhaustion just to earn a few hours of sleep.
The van pulled to a stop at the end of the block. A man stuck his head out.
I peered.
He was talking to someone. A car drove past, illuminating the figure’s bright-red hair.
Lexi.
25
LEXI
“You got a package!”
“I’m a horrible person and I don’t deserve a package,” I said dejectedly when I walked into the cramped, dark studio apartment. I dumped my towel on the back of a rickety folding chair.
“Aw, did your sunbathing not give you a mood boost?” McKenna asked.
I slumped down in a chair.
“Grayson was there.”
“Yikes.”
“Yeah.”
“He wasn’t happy, I take it?”
“Really?” Grenadine demanded. “That man wasn’t happy that he saw a busty lass in a bikini?”
“I was wearing a thong-kini,” I said with a grimace. “He was not amused.”
“Bullshit,” Grenadine insisted. “No red-blooded American male looks at an ass as nice as yours and thinks, I need to have that removed immediately from my house.” She tapped me on the hip with the wine bottle.
“He’s going through a lot,” I said, rubbing my face. “I’m pretty sure the big S was the last thing on his mind. That’s why he has all that food—it’s a trauma response thing. Grayson had a sad childhood.”
“No, he didn’t. He went to Harvard. His bio doesn’t say anything about him being a foster kid or anything,” McKenna argued. “I looked him up before I took the job.”
“Maybe he doesn’t advertise it,” I said dully. “Of course someone who had a bad childhood is going to hoard food. I know that. I volunteer. I should have been more mindful. That wasn’t nice of me. His mom was probably a domestic violence victim or something.” I sighed and opened my laptop. “Maybe his family was homeless, and that’s why he’s donating to those charities. I should make a donation or something in his mom’s name.”
