The only home I’d ever known.
And now she was gone.
Graham wasn’t finished. “You really think I’m going to waste my time with some chick cracked enough not only to buy into that crap, but to make it her life’s work? I would sooner slam my dick in a doorway than shove it into some sage-waving, crystal-obsessed crazy girl who’ll spend hours analyzing my star chart, then lay a curse on me when I break up with her.”
“That’s not—”
“Dick in a doorway, Flo.Dick in a doorway.”
“But—”
“No buts. If I have to listen to one more wannabe-Wiccan in this town tell me I have Scorpio energy, whatever the fuck that means…” He took a long pull from his beer bottle, swallowed harshly, then muttered, “Gotta be fucking kidding me.”
“Gwennie,” Flo whispered suddenly, going pale.
“Gwennie?” Graham repeated, voice changing from condescension to confusion.
“Gwendolyn! Wait, honey!” Flo was off her stool, pushing past her boyfriend, then shoving by Graham — sending him a rather scary glare in the process. “Gwen! Please!”
But I was already turning to leave. I had to get out of there, before I lost my cool. I wasn’t ready for this. I needed more time. The grief was still too fresh, too close to the surface. I couldn’t tamp it down. Couldn’t get it in check. It was safer for everyone if I stayed home alone with my wine bottle and my bathtub, until I was once again able to function in society without having a breakdown.
Unfortunately, I only made it two steps before Flo caught up to me, latching onto my arm and whipping me around to face her. In the dim light of the bar, her expression was soft, gentle with sympathy, and I knew thatsheknew I’d heard every word.
“Gwen,” she murmured. “He’s a jackass. Don’t let him bother you.”
“He doesn’t,” I said, but even I could hear the hurt in my tone. “I don’t care what he thinks.”
“Then why are you leaving?”
“This was a mistake.” I shook my head rapidly. “I’m not ready yet.”
“It’s been months, honey.” Her eyes were still soft with compassion. “You can’t just sit all alone in that big drafty house—”
“I’m sorry, I can’t be here,” I cut her off, breaking eye contact because if I kept looking into her soft, sweet, melted chocolate irises I was going to lose it completely. Regrettably, this meant my gaze locked on something else.
And that something was Graham.
He was standing several feet behind Florence, and his eyes were on me. Not just on me, but burning into me. I could feel the weight of them on my skin as they moved over my face and I wanted to look away, Itoldmyself to look away, but I couldn’t seem to make my eyes cooperate. I was staring straight back at him, hating him in part for what he’d said but mostly because if he’d been handsome as a teen, he was off-the-charts as a grown man. He was…hot, pure and simple.
People always say “clothes make the man” but in his case it was simply not true. He made those simple clothes spectacular. His jeans fit like they were created just for him. His shirt beneath the leather jacket was sculpted perfectly against every contour of his chest. He towered several inches past six feet, almost a head above me, even in my low-heeled boots.
Whatever traces of boyish youth his square jaw and angled cheeks held last time I saw him was gone completely, now. At twenty-seven, he was every inch a man and I hated,hated, that my body was responding to him as a woman. Just looking at him, I could feel something stirring in my bloodstream. A visceral reaction that gripped me from the inside out. It was intense. It was instinctive.
It was most unwelcome.
Because I could forgive him for talking about me, judging me without ever having met me. But I could not forgive him deriding Aunt Colette. Diminishing her shop, her life’s work, into something idiotic and insane. I could not let it roll off. I could not take it as a harmless, off-the-cuff comment.
Not then, with her loss so fresh.
Maybe not ever.
But definitely,definitely, not then.
“Gwen?” Florence asked, calling my attention back to her. “Are you all right?”
With effort, I tore my gaze away from Graham’s scorching one. And, as I did, I vowed it was the last time I’d ever waste my attention on him. From that moment on, he would cease to exist for me. Whoever he’d been as a young man — my good luck charm, my personal god on earth — was gone. This guy, standing before me, was an asshole, alpha-male jackass with heartbreak written all over his infuriatingly symmetrical face. And I’d already had enough heartbreak to last a lifetime.
“Of course I’m all right,” I told Flo. “I’m always all right.”