“Thanks.” Visions of my first time flash before my eyes. The hair pulling, damp stone against my face, the rip and tear of clothes and flesh, the endless biting and sucking. Blood and cum on my lips. Those smoldering blue eyes….
I cross my legs to quell the tingling in my thighs. Any time I think of the intimate moments I shared with Blue my body becomes his again. My heart races. My legs wobble. I’ll involuntarily lick my lips, waiting for his. Sometimes I swear I can smell the scent of smoke breaking through the barrier of my memories.
I miss him and how he made me feel so wanted. So loved. So alive.
I miss our little secluded bubble of love.
I miss him.
“Anyway, here’s the thing. I’ve been thinking…”
I blink and nod, forcing my brain back to now. “Uh oh….”
“Just listen, okay?”
“Okay.”
“I like hanging out with you. I love Lyric. I think you guys should move in with me. I’ll help you with Lyric, you won’t have to drop her off at your mother’s every time you want to do something, I can take Acorn jogging with me, we can just… I don’t know. Be there for each other. Kinda co-life together, until we figure shit out.”
This is not at all what I was expecting. “Um, what?”
“I have this beautiful house. I have four bedrooms. Three of them are empty, I don’t even have furniture in them. I’ve got this huge backyard. I spent so much time and money on this house, and I don’t want to give it up, but it’s driving me nuts that it’s so... empty.”
I blink at him and he grins.
“Your place is cute, but it’s small. You work on a snack table in your living room most of the time. You guys would have so much room here. I’ll charge you the same rent you’re paying now. We can share the kitchen. You buy your food, I’ll buy mine. I’ve got a living room and a den so we can either hang out together, or separate, whatever you want. There’s more than enough room for us to not be on top of each other.”
He’s right, this house is huge. It has rooms I haven’t even seen. One of the bathrooms is almost as big as my bedroom in my apartment, and the other three are damn near close.
“Are you serious? You want us to live with you?”
“I’m dead serious.”
“You didn’t forget the cat, right? He has to come, too.”
“I love Archie. Look at all the windows he’ll have.”
“I don’t know, Josh. It’s awfully tempting….” It is. We’re slowly growing out of my current apartment, but everything I’ve looked at in nice neighborhoods, that’s close to both my office and my parents’ house, is almost double the cost.
“I do have one requirement, though,” he says.
I cross my arms over my chest and raise an eyebrow. “I knew there had to be a catch.”
“You have to be my date for public functions and when I visit my family, and when they come here. I promise not to grope you. Just hold my hand and smile and pretend we’re dating. That’s it. No other strings, we’re roommates. No expectations, no lies, no hidden agendas.”
Ah. He wants a decoy while he’s half in and half out of the closet. It’s a small price to pay in exchange to live in a nice house and have a man in mine and Lyric’s life, even if only as a friend.
“I guess I can do that. Will you do the same for me if I need a good-looking guy on my arm?” Finally, I could have a date for the company holiday party.
“Hell, yeah.”
“What if you get involved with someone and want them to move in? Nobody is going to want to live here with me and a three-year-old and a dog and a cat.”
He blows out a breath and shakes his head. “That’s the last thing I’m worried about. I have no plans of getting involved or wanting to live with someone for a long time, trust me.”
“What if I meet someone?”
As if.
“If you’re dating someone and you want to hang out here, I’m totally down with that. I don’t want anyone moving in, though. If you get to that point, you’d have to find a place.”
“That’s fair,” I agree. “Can I think about it for a few days? This is a lot to absorb.”
“Sure. I’m not going anywhere.”
I already know I’m going to say yes, though. Josh is handing me the perfect situation on a silver platter: a fake boyfriend that I can hide behind while I wait for Blue to come back.
Chapter Twenty
2003
“What are the chances we can have those new ad layouts by noon?”
I spin my chair around to face Dave, a thirty-something, average-looking account manager who’s leaning casually against the doorframe of my office, wearing a smile on his face like he didn’t just ask to completely derail my day.
“You know damn well I just got out of the Monday morning status meeting, Dave. You were there. That only gives me two hours to go through all these changes.” I gesture to the project folder on my desk that has about fifty red sticky flags poking out of it.
“Don’t kill the messenger. Production is pushing us to belt this out today. Do what you can.” He walks off before I can rattle off a list of reasons why this process shouldn’t be rushed.
“Dammit,” I swear under my breath, wheel my chair across my office to open the window for some fresh air, then scoot back to my desk to tackle this new deadline. I switch on my desk radio to my favorite station and dive into the layout change list.
As stressful as my job can be, I love everything about it. I’m never bored, and the time flies by—a massive difference from when I worked as a receptionist, which seems like forever ago. I sing along softly to the radio as I work, glancing at the clock every so often to gauge the likelihood of me finishing by noon. So far, things are going smoothly.
I’m leaning over one of the documents, trying to decipher someone’s incredibly scribbly handwriting, when a rock ballad playing on the radio rips my attention away. Dropping my pen, I snap my head up and raise the volume a little.
“Slayer of my heart,
Wish of my soul….”
Goosebumps spread over my arms, and my pulse beats rapidly in my veins as I stare at the tiny speaker in a state of disbelief.
I know those words. I know the sound of that guitar.
And I would know that voice—that unique, gravelly, sexy voice—anywhere.
Blue…
With my breath caught in my chest, I listen intently to the lyrics, and the voice, that captivated me so long ago, to the melody I still play on that tiny music box. Hot tears sting my eyes as the song nears the end, and I silently beg the DJ to come on and announce the band and song name.
“That was the new hit single ‘Slayer of My Heart’ by No Tomorrow that climbed to the top of the charts last week.”
Holy. Shit.
My entire body is shaking from shock, and my heart is thumping wildly in my chest. This is real. Like really, really, real. I’m not suffering from some kind of stressed-out Monday morning hallucination. I just heard Blue—my Blue—on the radio, singing and playing guitar. And not just any song, but a song he told me he wrote for me. About me. The DJ just called it a hit single, on the top of the charts.
The edges of my vision blur as I stare at the radio. This is surreal. Like a dream. My head feels like a balloon—empty and floating off into a place so far out of reality that I can’t reach it.
I press my fingers into my temples and close my eyes.
I take a deep breath.
A pop song comes on the radio next—a song that’s on my aerobics playlist.
It grounds me somewhat. Brings me back from the shock.
When—how—did all this happen?
“How’s that coming?” Dave pokes his head into my office and I quickly wave him away.
“Not now,” I say abruptly, turning away to hide my state of anxiety.
Jesus. This can’t be happening. I grab my water bottle and sip, taking deep breaths in between to try to calm the jitters quaking through me. Hundreds of questions fly through my mind like a whirlwind.