Total pages in book: 120
Estimated words: 121887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121887 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 609(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 406(@300wpm)
Regret. Tenderness. Unease.
And something else. Something I couldn’t name. I couldn’t even define it.
But dang, it sure was pretty.
“We’ll talk tonight,” he said, his deep, rough voice going soft in a way I’d never heard, and kill me dead, that was pretty too.
I decided to stop talking.
Javi’s gaze swept over my face, then his finger, in the lightest touch imaginable, swept up the inside of my arm, from wrist to inner elbow.
Dang it.
That didn’t feel pretty.
It felt beautiful, and other things besides.
I shivered.
“Yeah,” he whispered.
I shivered again.
His perfect lips quirked, and if I was not mistaken, relief hit his gaze.
I screwed up my eyes to squint irritably at him.
He smiled.
My private parts wept in a happy way.
Fortunately, at this point, he moved out of my space and toward the door, saying to Shanti as he used it, “This convo at SC better be about you women backing off whatever this shit is.”
“Wouldn’t count on that, hoss,” she replied.
Javi gave her a look, which, if it was anyone but Shanti, who was sweet as sugar but didn’t take any stuff, might melt the flesh off their bones, then he slammed the door behind him.
“He’s a slammer,” I said.
Shanti turned to me.
“You know, I always had a feeling there was something bigger with Kev,” I remarked. “With the whole Trev thing last night, and then his sad demise, I’m thinking this proves it.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Yes. Don’t you think so?” I asked back.
“No, sis, really?” she semi-repeated. “I’m here before the crack of dawn, Javi opens the door, you wander down the hall looking like every woman who wakes up in a movie looks when they wake up, which is how nobody looks when they wake up. You two have verbal angry sex, which by the way, was hot as hell, and you do that more than once. He leaves, and you aren’t sharing what’s going down with you two?”
“Nothing is,” I replied, though her “verbal angry sex” note gave me another shiver.
She inspected me for several long seconds before she stated, “I think you’re telling yourself that, in other words, lying to yourself.”
Maybe so, but the lying-to-myself zone was a safe zone for me to be in.
And since I didn’t feel safe at all, not since Javi laid his truth on me last night and it made me feel weirdly like I was the odd woman out. Like I didn’t belong. This, a feeling I hadn’t had in a long time—unless I was with my family, where I’d lived with it my whole life—and it wasn’t much fun having it back. Therefore, the lying-to-myself zone was where I was going to stay.
“Is Willow okay with this Trev thing?” I asked to change the subject.
Another several long seconds elapsed before Shanti did what Shanti was always so cool about doing.
Giving you space when you needed it.
“She thought he was an ass.”
Well, there you go.
“But she’s tweaked,” Shanti continued.
I didn’t doubt it.
“I can come to work early,” I told her.
“Great,” she replied, turning to go.
“And by the way, you look like women look in the movies when you get up too,” I said, following her to the door.
She gave me a smile. “You’re boss, babe.”
“You’re more boss.”
“I can’t deny that.”
We laughed. I closed the door on her after I promised to see her at work. I put superhuman effort into tamping down any thought of Javi last night, this morning, or at all.
I made coffee. I made myself a smoothie. I did some Pilates moves in my living room.
And when I hit the shower, I changed gears to psych myself up for whatever was going to happen.
Therefore, I queued up Florence in order to “Shake It Out.”
Florence gave me strength.
But even so, when I selected my outfit for that day, even though I was oh so NOT going to dinner with Javi that night…
I made sure it was a cute one.
FOUR
“DON’T START NOW”
(DUA LIPA)
While I idled in the suicide lane, Dua Lipa stating my case of “Don’t Start Now” loudly from the car speakers of my pea-green Kia Soul (I didn’t really have a choice of car or color, since it was the cheapest on the lot when I went car shopping, and the only one I could afford).
Still, the speakers worked great.
I looked to The Surf Club and saw that Tex, our boss, our top barista and part owner of SC, had, as usual, used white shoe polish on the front window to communicate his coffee special of the day.
He wasn’t that great of an illustrator, so I wasn’t sure what I was seeing. It could be a coconut. It could be an orange.
I’d have to find out when I went to the coffee counter at the front of the club and ordered one.
I got an opening—and singing at the top of my lungs with Dua about not caring about me now—I turned left and found a primo parking spot under one of the paloverdes my other boss, Tito, planted in the parking lot. I shut down the Soul along with Dua, grabbed my purse and headed in.