He batted his eyelashes—those insanely long, insanely well-formed eyelashes—at me and caused me to scoff. “Of course. I’m not eating two of these. Do you know how many calories are in one?”
He shrugged and took the water I was still holding out, downed half of it, then handed it back to me and grabbed the cookie from my hand.
I bent down and set the water cup down on the curb, noticing that the moms of Target were still gathered outside watching the show.
“You have a big fan club here,” I mused, opening the cellophane from my own cookie as he did the same to his.
“I do,” he grumbled. “That’s why I didn’t notice you at first. It gets kind of old, to be honest.”
It got old being that beautiful.
Damn, my man was hot AF.
He groaned when he finally bit into his cookie. “Damn, these are good. Did they just make them?”
I nodded as I licked melted chocolate off of one finger. “Yeah. They were literally putting them into the saran wrap after pulling them off of the cookie sheet when I walked in the door. I only got two, though. If you want more, you’ll have to go in there yourself. I haven’t worked out in two days, and I’m already stressing the button of my jean shorts.”
He snorted, his eyes going to where my shorts dug into my belly a bit.
“I think you’re imagining things,” he mused, taking another huge bite of cookie. “I like you just the way you are.”
Something sweet and thick started to slowly move through my veins.
I felt all warm inside at his compliment.
“Yo, vato!” one of Callum’s workers called. “Stop feeding that fat ass of yours and get movin’! I’ve been late home three days this week, and if I continue, my Maria is going to eviscerate me!”
My lips curved into a small smile as I held out the tea to him.
He took it, shoved the rest of his cookie into his mouth, then held the trash out to me with a pleading look.
I snorted, but took the trash, then leaned into him and waited until he dropped his mouth onto my own.
“Bye, Sunshine.”
He scoffed. “Don’t call me that.”
I backed away from him until I knew I was safe enough to say what I said next.
“You could always try to make me.” I teased.
He took a step forward, acting like he was going to chase after me, and I squealed and ran into Target, looking back over my shoulder twice to see him staring at me. Watching to make sure that I got into the store all right.
It took me an hour and a half in Target.
I walked out with three hundred dollars’ worth of shit that I didn’t need, including an espresso maker that supposedly made coffee as good as professional coffee shops.
Fifteen minutes after arriving at home, Callum sent me a text message.
I opened it, and immediately burst out laughing.
There was a photo of a very familiar mailbox—one that was custom made by my own mother—and on the front of a mailbox was a duct-taped Post-it Note that said, ‘No, you’re a cunt’ in cursive handwriting.
I burst out laughing, because right before I’d been blocked on all social media accounts, my sister had sent one last message: you’re a cunt.
God, I loved this man.
And I didn’t care that it’d only been a few weeks since I’d met him.
How could I not love him?
CHAPTER 20
How do you make a tissue dance? Put a little boogie in it.
-Text from Shine to Iris
SHINE
The day had been brutal.
Our little part of Texas had a heat index of one hundred and fifteen degrees with humidity of sixty-two percent.
That meant, the moment I drank a bottle of water, I sweated it out in fifteen minutes.
It also meant that, after I rode all the way home from delivering a note to a certain someone, I was dog-tired.
I arrived at my house to a van in my parking spot.
One that had a big ass lock painted on the side of it.
Smile kicking up the corner of my mouth, I walked up to the man that was changing the locks on my front door.
“Hey,” I called to the familiar man.
Desiderrick, a man that I’d gone to high school with once upon a time, looked up with a grin. “Didn’t know this was your place.”
I nodded. “It is. What’s up?”
“Got a call to change the locks today,” he said. “Saw that cute little thing inside and thought I had a chance. But, sadly, she told me she was taken. If I’d have known it was by you, I’d have pushed a little harder.”
I scoffed and slapped him on the back as I walked past. “Keep dreamin’, bro. Keep dreamin’. You couldn’t steal my girl in high school, and you can’t steal her now.”
Desi snorted. “I could’ve if I wanted to. But you always drifted toward the ones that were crazy, or high maintenance. Or both. Don’t know if I can handle either of those things right now, so probably a good thing she turned me down.”
After a few more minutes of bullshitting with him, I walked inside to hearing Iris’s voice from the other room.
“No, I haven’t seen her,” I heard her snarl. “Why would I go see her now, after all that I just found out? I mean, Mother, she slept with my boyfriend. And it wasn’t as if this was something that was just once. From what she told me, it was more than once.” There was a long pause. “Not to mention, how the hell would I hear from her when she’s blocked me on all social media accounts, as well as blocked my phone number? Kind of hard to hear from someone when they do that.”
There was a long moment of silence and then, “No, I will not go to dinner with her. I’ll stay my happy ass here Sunday and try to cool down enough to have a meal with her next week. Until then, y’all are on your own… not that you have a problem eating without me.”
I walked up behind her where she was angrily stirring a cup of coffee.
It was apparent that the cream and sugar that she put in her cup was well mixed.
I caught her hand, stilled it, and then bent down to press a kiss to her exposed neck.
Her long blonde hair was beyond gorgeous.
But when she had it up in a messy ponytail?
That shit did it for me.
Or maybe it was the tiny little shorts that showed she’d gone to work out at some point, and had gotten home—God, it felt good to say this was her home—and hadn’t changed out of her clothes yet.
No matter what the reason for me liking her there, I did. I fucking liked it. I liked it a whole lot.
And it scared the absolute shit out of me.
I was so lost in thought that the last thing in the world I expected was a quiet knock at the door.
When I opened it to find Lindy there, standing with a bunch of cops, I was stunned silent for a long few moments.
Iris came up behind me, squeaked her way underneath my arm and the door, and said, “What’s going on?”
“Ma’am. Sir,” the closest officer said. “We’d like to speak with you all for a few minutes.”
Frowning, I looked down at Iris, but ultimately backed away and allowed them into my house.
“What’s going on?” I asked once the door was closed.
There was a clearing of a throat and then, “The man that I now rent the house from? He’s dead.”