So when she locked eyes with her bedmate, her heart pounding against her chest, she knew what she needed to say.
“Yeah, it does.”
Audrey pulled into her driveway and put her new black Volkswagen CC in park. Even though she fell in love with her car at first sight, she wasn’t feeling it right now. She was feeling more like a big ol’ whore, and dreaded going inside. She knew when she went in that all Levi’s things would be gone and he wouldn’t be there. She knew she shouldn’t be sad, but she was. She hated that their relationship was so jacked up. She missed him already, but not nearly as much as she missed Blondie.
How did that make sense?
She had this nagging feeling that she had made a huge mistake walking out of that hotel room. It might be because she was leaving Blondie, or maybe that she didn’t make sure that he left. What if he ran up her tab at the hotel? Not only was she a whore, but a stupid one. She needed to call the hotel. Not now, but soon.
She made her way into the condo and locked the door behind her. She dropped her overnight bag down on the couch and looked around. Fallon had taken a lot of her things with her when she moved out a few months ago. That didn’t bother Audrey much, but she did miss Fallon’s ugly owl statues and her silly little wine holders. Her sister was obsessed with wine, while she couldn’t give two shits about it. She had promised herself that she would start collecting things she liked, but the only thing she’d bought was an inspirational picture. She glanced at the quote in a Victorian-style frame above her bookshelf.
Move on. It’s just a chapter in the past. Don’t close the book. Just turn the page.
How appropriate.
As she headed for the kitchen, she tried to ignore the fact that all of Levi’s shoes were gone, but it was hard. If his things were there, she would have already started bitching about the shoes that took up all the spare spaces in her living room. Or the way his magazines cluttered her table, and that he couldn’t put a glass in the sink if his life depended on it.
Audrey opened the fridge door, taking out a can of beer and a big Kit Kat bar before heading up the stairs. She had to find something to distract herself, and since Lucas was slow to finish the closet he was building for her, it seemed to be the perfect distraction. Beating the hell out of boards with a hammer, imagining that each nail was Levi’s head, was a perfect way to distract herself.
She put her beer and chocolate bar down on a nearby table and picked up a hammer. Lucas had worked hard knocking out the wall between Aiden and Fallon’s old rooms. Yes, it was a little bratty of her to want a humongous closet, but it made her feel good. Plus, it wasn’t like she would ever have a family to fill the condo, so why not fill it with shoes? Lucas had done a lot already—the shelves for her shoes were almost done—but there was still a lot more to do.
Audrey shimmied out of her skirt and threw it against the wall, standing only in her panties and shirt. She really needed to take a shower, but banging the crap out of a board seemed like a fantastic idea to her. She went over to the far wall and picked up a board. She didn’t know what she was doing and she didn’t care. She slammed the hammer against the board, driving eighteen different nails into the wall before she crumpled to the floor and started crying.
She couldn’t believe Levi was gone. How could he leave her? She gave him everything. Made sure he was fully loved. She took the crap he dished out, and the sex when she didn’t want it, with the pain that inevitably accompanied it. So he liked to choke her when they did it. Everyone had their quirks. But if she were honest with herself, that wasn’t the real reason she was crying. Why did she miss Blondie? How could she miss a man, let alone sleep with a man she didn’t know?! Why could she still feel his lips along her spine and collarbone? Why could she still feel him touching her? She wanted him again, and that alone was bad, very bad.