“So you were in a box.” He encouraged me to go on, thoroughly invested.
I couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, I wassick. He pulled me out of the box and carried me to a motel where he spent an entire day giving me medicine and bringing down my fever.”
“Did he make you soup?”
Surprised, I asked, “How did you know?”
“He really is like Kieran.”
“He got me cookies too. And gave me his hoodie.” And his T-shirt. And a pair of socks. And a ghost stuffie.
“For someone so anxious to leave, he sure left a lot behind,” Haz quipped.
I paused. “Did I say all that out loud?”
He nodded.
My cheeks heated. “Sometimes I talk to myself. I’m usually alone, so no one else hears.”
“I chew my nails,” he said, holding up his hand to show off short, ragged nails.
“Life is a lot sometimes.” I commiserated, then got back to the gossip. “But I think he left it all behind because he was in such a hurry to get away from me.”
“Then why would he spend all that time nursing you back to health?”
My stomach dipped. The way Haz saidnurse you back to healthfelt intimate and special. Like something someone did when they cared.
I shook my head, wanting to clear the thought and not give it water to grow. Thoughts were like seeds that way. If you watered and nurtured them, they grew and turned into weeds that polluted your brain.
I didn’t have time for a brain full of weeds. I needed tothink clearly. And realistically.
“But when I woke up, he was gone, and in his place was a bag filled with five thousand dollars.”
Haz’s jaw dropped. “Five grand?”
I nodded. “There was a note that said to get an apartment.”
“Did you have sex with him?” Haz asked plainly.
This time, my ears flamed alongside my cheeks. “Of course I did. You’ve seen him,” I whined. The dark hair, hooded gaze, and muscles. I wanted to inhale him the way he inhaled those cigarettes, except I was greedy and wouldn’t exhale.
Realization dawned.He didn’t smell like cigarettes this morning.Why?
Haz laughed, and I remembered we’d been talking. “It was like that with Kieran too. I couldn’t resist.”
“But Kieran didn’t disappear after leaving you a pile of cash,” I pointed out.
Haz frowned. “And you haven’t seen him since?”
I shook my head. “Not until yesterday at the Neon Reef.”
Leaving you was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.His words from this morning echoed through the chambers of my heart, escorted by the memory of being wrapped tight against his chest.
It was dangerously close to perfection. Until he said I’d be his downfall.
I won’t let him be mine.
I hopped off the barstool, grimacing on impact. “I really need to be going.”
