Pieces of Summer

My breaths grow heavier as I turn to face him, and I contemplate my options. No fours. Never four. Don’t let four get in the way. Four is a trigger. Four days and four nights can’t happen.

“I’ll go bowling with you tomorrow,” I tell him, watching the way his boyish grin appears and makes it worth the possible trigger I’m pulling.

“Good.”

He remembers me as the fun, quirky, tough girl. The light at the end of his dark tunnel. It makes me miss the girl I once was, and desperate to feel like she did once again.

Strong. Fearless. In control. I want to be her so bad that it hurts.

Maybe I can write her into my story again. Maybe I can control it.

Instead of saying anything else, I get up and head inside, letting him kiss my hand on the way by. The feel of his lips lingers on my hand, and I close my eyes and take deep breaths.

Maybe I can be the girl I used to be if there’s a reason for me to try.

He stands abruptly, and his arms come around my waist, pulling my back to his front. “I’ll pick you up at six tomorrow.”

Shit. Why did he have to give me a time? Damn it.

“Exactly six,” I say quietly.

“Exactly,” he promises.

Chapter 25

CHASE

“Big brother called me today,” Blake says as he walks into my shop, looking over at me as I finish dabbing away the excess ink on the spine of the girl who is lying face-down in my chair.

“Who?” I ask absently, moving around to examine my work.

“Aidan. He called. Asked if I’d seen his sister out any. What’s his deal? And why is he calling me? I don’t know him.”

“Hell if I know,” I tell him as the chick in my chair stands up and gives me a naked shot of her chest.

I don’t even acknowledge it as I turn around and grab the aftercare bag. Glad I make them prepay. It means I can just walk away while she takes her time putting her shirt on.

She doesn’t bat an eye as she faces Blake, and he gives her a lopsided grin while staring at her rack.

“What’d you tell him?” I ask Blake as I go over to the sink to wash my hands.

“Told him she was getting out some, but didn’t go into details. Obviously. He asked if you were staying away. I didn’t want to lie, so I told him you were doing your own thing.”

“I’m guessing she told him what she stumbled onto that time she came back,” I grumble.

As the flasher walks by, she sticks something in Blake’s hand, and he watches her ass all the way out.

“I love summer girls.”

As if I needed my summer girl to be in my head any more than she already is.

“So, you and Mika? How’s that going? I can only assume that’s where you’ve been hanging out since you never answer your phone anymore, and Bertie mentioned you two sat in Little Bit Of Italian Heaven for hours the other day.”

Small towns equals big mouths.

“Yeah. I’m… I have no fucking clue what I’m doing to be honest. I suddenly feel like a teenager again, because I’m not acting like myself at all around her.”

I’d have already fucked her and had her begging me to stay with her by now if I was acting like me instead of an insecure fucking kid. It’s annoying. But that’s what she does to me. She drives me crazy and makes me forget who I am.