I was ice blonde with long hair down to about mid-back, it was curly as fuck, and half the time decided to be curly, while the other time it decided it liked being one with the frizz.
I had a muscular body and no ass, with barely any tits to speak of.
But, like I liked to tell everyone that commented on my lack of ass, the reason it was so small was because my thighs were just that big.
They were thick with muscle, and every single woman that worked out near me always commented on them.
What they did not comment on was my ass.
Because I didn’t have one.
No matter how hard I tried to build it up.
“Tell me you got your computer,” Davina pleaded.
I laughed. “I got my computer. He also let me have my old apartment back.”
“Ugh,” Davina scoffed. “I would rather you live here.”
“You might,” I agreed. “But Anderson wouldn’t.”
Anderson and Teller Kincaid had been good friends. They’d both been in the law enforcement community and had known each other before Davina and I came along.
We’d gone out on a double date, and things had just meshed from there.
And, until about six months ago, things had been going great.
Then Teller started to change, and I started to not like that change, and we’d grown apart.
Now, Anderson was in a precarious position with allowing me to stay with them, even though his best friend had been dumped.
“You’re right,” she agreed. “But he also understands that if he wants some happy, he’ll allow you to stay on my couch as long as I want.”
I snorted. “I’m coming home to get my stuff and then running past Walmart to get an air mattress. Then I’ll be heading back to the apartment.” I paused. “I might ask if Anderson will help get some of the old tenant’s shit out, though. If he doesn’t help, I’ll have to ask Teller.”
“He’ll help,” she assured me.
I sighed. “Thank you.”
“Do you want to go to Bubba’s tonight for a drink?” she asked. “Just us?”
I thought about that. “Sure.”
• • •
SHINE
“You have got to be shitting me.”
I felt the headache that I’d been able to keep at bay by sheer force of will start to throb at the woman’s voice.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” I admitted. “But Lindy, I’m tired. I don’t want to do this right now.”
“Well, then you should’ve found another way to your room,” she snapped.
Maybe I fucking should have.
Living in a house that you shared with your ex-girlfriend was strange.
But, since the housing situation was the way it was in our small town, I’d had no other recourse but to stay. Or be homeless.
I could stay with my sister, of course, in one of her cabins, but those bitches raked in a thousand dollars a month, and there was no way that I was taking that income out of her hands.
I was literally looking everywhere for a new place, but for the last four and a half months, I’d come up short.
Literally, there was nothing out there, and it was getting to the point where I was considering building a damn house if it took me far away from Lindy and her annoying voice.
“There is only one way to my room,” I pointed out. “And that’s through the main living area. You may be able to use it as yours, but you still have to give me access to it.”
We shared the kitchen, but the main living room was hers, while the game room in the basement was mine. We each had our own bathroom and our own bedroom.
The only problem was, I had to walk through ‘her’ living room to get to my bedroom.
And, unless I wanted to climb in my window—which was sounding better and better every day that passed and I had to deal with her screechy self—I had to figure this out.
“What is it this time?” I sighed.
“You left your peanut butter knife in the sink again,” she growled.
I felt my eye twitch. “And?”
“And you need to wash it, or it’ll dry onto the silverware,” she snapped.
It felt like we were still together at this point.
She found something stupid to yell at me about, I took it, and then we’d depart to our separate rooms.
Only, now I wasn’t getting regular sex.
“I am always the one who unloads the dishwasher,” I pointed out. “So if it does dry onto the silverware, I’m the one who takes it out and rewashes it and puts it away. So, lay off me, okay? God.”
“This is the reason we broke up,” she pointed out. “You never could admit to your mistakes.”
I felt my pulse pounding in my temples, but instead of replying, I decided to be the bigger person and head to my room.
God, the day where I found an apartment couldn’t come fast enough.
Granted, I could stay with any of my brothers, and though they’d give me shit, they wouldn’t complain.
But the two that I would actually be willing to live with—Haggard and Bram—were both married. Both annoyingly so, meaning I wouldn’t want to be there when they decided to fuck on the kitchen table.
Which they would.
Crow men didn’t care when it came to their women. When they wanted, where they wanted.
At least when it came to Haggard and Bram.
“You need to pay rent this month, too! I don’t have it,” Lindy called at my back.
I paused in the doorway of my room and looked back at her over my shoulder.
“Why don’t you have it?” I asked carefully.
Lindy licked her lips and looked at me like she wanted to murder me for asking her that.
That was the first thing we agreed on when we’d split and decided to split the rent on the place we were in until one of us could find somewhere else to live.
She’d pay on odd months, I’d pay on even.
This was her month.
“I had a mishap at the store. Couple of declined credit cards. I have a few overdraft fees, too.” She paused. “Thanks for reminding me of my embarrassment.”
I narrowed my eyes. “You don’t get that many overdraft fees that you can’t pay your rent. Rent is eight hundred dollars. You’re telling me you got an overdraft fee eight times?”
Lindy shrugged her shoulder. “I’m telling you what I’m telling you. You believe what you want to believe.”
I clenched my fists. “You either come up with it by tomorrow afternoon, or you move out. That was the deal.”
Lindy’s eyes narrowed. “There’s nowhere to go, and you know it.”
I shrugged. “I do know it. I also know that you were the one to come up with the idea. Either pay it or move out. Not my problem.”
Her anger rose, and I saw her fist her hands at her sides. “I don’t have it, asshole.”
I looked her dead in the eye and said, “You made the deal. The deal is signed and stamped at our lawyer’s office for Christ’s sake. You made the deal. So, either pay it, or I go to the lawyer, which you chose to draft this ridiculous deal up, and have him show you a copy of the agreement before I go to the sheriff’s office and have you kicked out on your ass with nowhere to go. You choose.”