Page 43 of Should Have Been Me

I needed a moment to think. I needed to screw my head on straight, but I couldn’t do that with her around. I just felt... too much. I needed a reprieve. That was all.

“Are you okay to drive home or do you need me to take you?”

Jesus! Did I really just fucking say that?

She rocked back on her heel, her face pulling into a wince that gutted me before she schooled her features. “I’m fine to drive myself, thanks.” Her tone was void of all emotion. The sound of it made me want to claw at my own ears, but I felt frozen in place.

The two of us stood in some sort of silent standoff, neither of us saying a word, and after a solid minute, Jolie let out a pained scoff and shook her head in disappointment. I couldn’t get my feet to come unglued as she turned on her heel and stomped to her car. I couldn’t get my lungs or voice to work either. All I could do was stand there, slowly suffocating in my own stupidity as she muttered, “This was such a huge mistake,” before climbing into her car and taking off without a single look back.

Taking a crucial component to my very survival with her as she left.

22

JOLIE

The sun was starting to peek through the slats of my blinds as I lay on my back, staring up at the rotating blades of my ceiling fan and stewing in a silent rage. I hadn’t gotten more than an hour of sleep after storming away from Vaughn’s house the night before. My body was primed and aching for more after the best sex I ever had, but the kindling of my temper had been smoldering since I climbed into my car and sped away, and it was taking everything I had to keep it from spreading into a blazing forest fire.

I really had to cake the concealer on to hide the circles under my eyes from lack of sleep—as well as the bite mark on my neck, but I wasn’t going to think about that. I’d never in my life been so pissed off while simultaneously aroused to the point that I could feel my pulse between my legs. It was messing with my head. It also hurt a hell of a lot more than I wanted to admit to myself.

I dressed for work, putting extra effort into my appearance in the hopes that if I felt pretty, maybe my mood would improve. The summer dress fluttered around my legs as I walked, the gentle swish of the fabric against my skin bringing to mind how Vaughn’s hands felt on me the night before and eliciting a riot of goosebumps across my flesh.

Smoosh sat on the kitchen counter, flicking her tail back and forth and watching me with her typical bored expression as I poured coffee into a travel mug. “What?” I clipped, slamming the cup onto the counter with a huff when the feel of her silent judgment finally became too much. “Stop looking at me like that. I know what you’re thinking.” Other than I was certifiable for having actual conversations with my cat. “You think I put out too soon, and he’s not going to bother with the cow because he’s already had the milk for free.” I let out an indignant snort and rolled my eyes. “Well, joke’s on you, because all I wanted was the milk too.”

Well, sort of. It wasn’t as if I wanted him to get down on his knees and declare his undying love and devotion to me or anything. I liked the guy, and the sex was out of this world. I would have been lying if I said I didn’t want more of that. But it wasn’t like I expected him to wife me up or anything because we slept together. But it would have been nice if he’d at least waited until the tremors from the orgasm he’d given me had subsided before kicking me to the curb.

Heaving out a sigh, I grabbed my favorite bottle of creamer from the fridge and doctored my coffee, doing my best to ignore Smoosh’s beady little gaze. “I don’t care about Vaughn at all,” I grumbled. “He wants to hit it and quit it, that’s totally cool with me.” I cut a glare in Smoosh’s direction just as she canted her head to the side. “I am not lying,” I insisted sharply when she lifted her paw and began licking it lazily, like the action was her silent way of calling me on my bullshit. “Whatever. I don’t need your attitude.” I quickly screwed the lid on my travel mug and grabbed my purse off the counter before jabbing an accusatory finger at my cat. “You’d do well to remember who feeds you before you start criticizing.”

For crying out loud, I was losing my mind.

Before I could continue arguing with an animal that most likely couldn’t understand a word I was saying, I stormed out the door and headed to work. I’d been hoping for a quiet day where I could close myself in my office and work on editing photos in peace and quiet, but I knew as soon as I walked through the doors of Three’s a Charm that I wasn’t going to be that lucky.

“Oh my God. You had sex.”

I rocked back on a heel at Ryan’s declaration. My eyes flared wide, and I proceeded to choke as the sip of coffee I had just taken went into my lungs. Tarryn rushed over to pound on my back until I was able to breathe again.

“I didn’t—that’s not—how could you possibly know that?” I managed to sputter as I sucked in a huge lungful of air.

“You’re glowing,” she stated plainly before letting out a laugh and shaking her head. “Nah, I’m just kidding.” She pointed at my neck and explained, “You didn’t cover up that hickey nearly as well as you thought and there’s beard burn on your jaw and down your neck. At the very least you got a little frisky, and considering your dry spell, I took a shot that you wouldn’t be able to stop at just a bit of necking.”

I slapped my hand over the spot where I’d begged Vaughn to bite me as my face turned as red as a stop light. “I don’t want to talk about it,” I grumbled as I hitched my purse high on my shoulder and moved through the reception area toward my office. The click of my friends’ heels on the tile floor behind me told me they weren’t going to settle for my brush-off.

“Uh-uh, no way,” Tarryn exclaimed, wagging her finger in the air as she and Ryan moved into my office, taking the chairs across from my desk. As they made themselves comfortable, I couldn’t help but recall how ridiculous Vaughn had looked sitting in the chair Ryan was currently lounged in, and at the thought of him, my mood soured like month-old expired milk. “You get laid for the first time in a year, and you think you can get away with not telling your two bestest besties all about it? I don’t think so, babe. I told you guys all about that weekend in Jackson Hole with that street artist. You owe me.”

I held up my index finger. “First off, he was a criminal, Tarryn, not a street artist. He went around spray painting penises on buildings and stop signs, for crying out loud.” She waved me off with a scoff. “Second, all I did was ask you how your weekend had been. You’re the one who went into elaborate detail. I begged you to stop.”

“She has a point,” Ryan commiserated, giving Tarryn a stern look. “You do tend to overshare. But it’s just one of the many... unique things that makes you who you are.”

Tarryn’s eyes rolled dramatically as she let out a huff. “Fine, whatever. You don’t have to give us the details, but at least give us something.” Her expression morphed into excitement as she bounced in her chair. “Like, was it that super sex grump you’re fake boyfriend-ing up?”

My blush gave me away, of course. It also didn’t help matters that the two women sitting across from me knew me better than anyone else in the world. “We had a date last night—a fake date,” I quickly amended. “Just so people would quit speculating. Things got... a little out of hand afterward.”

Ryan’s brows pinched together. “Out of hand how? He didn’t do anything you didn’t want, did he?” She let out a little growl. “So help me, if he did, there are far too many places in these mountains to dispose of a body. I’ll make damn sure he’s never found.”

I appreciated Ryan’s protective streak, even if it was a little psychotic at times. “No,” I said with a shake of my head. “It was nothing like that. The da—fake date actually went really well. I had a lot of fun.”

Tarryn’s shoulders went up in a shrug. “Then what’s the problem?”

I heaved out a gust of air, the tension that had been pressing deep into my temples all morning long growing more intense. “We kind of got into an argument on the way back to his place afterward. He got all quiet and monosyllabic, and I took it personally.”

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