Page 9 of An Ex Affair

Frank elbowed Danny out of the way to take my hand in his. And not for a handshake. The man held my hand and leaned down to kiss it, lifting back up with a flirty smile. “To what do we owe the pleasure, Ms. Starling?”

I had no intention of entering into a flirtation with any man from Blueball, but I couldn’t lie. The attention was nice.

“I’m here to help y’all with your fundraiser.” I let my trademark smile dazzle them. “I’m your celebrity spokesperson.”

Joey coughed, his hand over his chest like this was news to him. And maybe not happy news. Frank swept his thumb across the back of my hand, still not letting me take it back. He was staring at me intently. Joey batted Frank away and our hands finally dropped. Joey put his arm around my shoulders and walked me into the station, the other two trailing behind us.

“How about you talk to Captain about all that?”

“Wait!” Danny stopped us, holding up his phone. “Can I get a selfie? My wife will freak out when I tell her I met you.”

I grinned, used to this reaction. I turned and cozied up next to Danny. He held the phone out and snapped a few pictures. Frank stepped up to crowd me in from the other side, a firefighter sandwich of muscly proportions. He swept my hair from my shoulder and let his fingers trace against my neck. I snapped my head in his direction. I wasn’t liking the twinkle in his eyes. I wasn’t here for that, no matter how pretty the man was.

“How about we give you a tour? You can slide down our pole.” He waggled his eyebrows while Danny stepped away with his hands up, like he wasn’t part of that offer. Which he shouldn’t, being a married man!

A door at the back of the bay slammed against the wall, grabbing everyone’s attention at once. Colson, my ex-husband, once love of my life, stood there framed in the doorway, hands clenched into fists at his side, hair tousled like he just ran his fingers through it. A mustache covered his beautiful lips, but did nothing to hide the enraged scowl.

He opened his mouth and an animalistic growl snapped across the space. “Step away from my wife, assholes.”

CHAPTER FOUR

Colson

Fucking Danny hadhis arm around Tully. I saw it happen plain as day through the glass portion of the door. I didn’t even know how I made it into the bay, but somehow my feet brought me there just in time for my ears to hear Frank proposition her like the dirty bastard he was.

The whole thing about “my wife” just kind of slipped out.

Old habit, I guessed.

I vaguely noticed Frank and Danny backing off and leaving the bay. The silence left behind was thick as the smoke from a grease fire. Honestly, I couldn’t really look anywhere but at Tully, cataloguing the way time had changed her features. She looked the same as she stared back at me. Same, but also vastly different.

“Colson.” Her lips moved as she said my name, but the sound came from down a long tunnel. Her eyes held a thousand flickering emotions, probably the same reflecting back from me. I knew this woman inside and out once upon a time. Knew her better than myself. Now she was a virtual stranger.

I wanted to get closer. Wanted to take her hand in mine and trace the vein on the back of her hand like I used to do when we watched movies together. I also wanted to yell at her. Scream out every ounce of frustration she left me with when she decided I wasn’t enough. That this life here in Blueball that we’d spent years planning for wasn’t enough for her. I also wanted to turn right back around and march out of here, showing her that she meant nothing to me anymore.

I did none of those things.

Tully suddenly lifted her nose in the air and walked toward me, a sultry siren in a blue pantsuit and heels. She’d filled out a bit over the years, her slim figure leaning more toward an hourglass shape that must have turned heads in the nineteen years since I’d known her. Her hair was still long, but those curls had been flattened, destroyed by some chemical or hot iron because women always wanted the hair they didn’t have. She stopped two feet from me, her hands twisting in front of her waist. Her nails were painted fire-engine red, an irony that bounced around inside my skull when I should have been trying to form a coherent sentence that wouldn’t make me look like an idiot.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, gaze darting down to my mustache and back up.

That was ironic, coming from her. “I live here. What areyoudoing here?”

Her lashes were so damn long. I’d almost forgotten that about her. How could I have forgotten that? She blinked repeatedly, to the point I wondered if something was in her eyes.

“I, uh, was asked to be the celebrity spokesperson for the fire department’s fundraiser.”

My mouth gaped open. No. There was no way Captain did this to me. “Excuse me?”

She frowned, but not much moved. It was more like a scrunching of her nose instead of eyes and mouth getting into it. That was new. Pretty sure Tully had dipped her face into a Hollywood med spa once or twice too many times.

“I was hired to?—”

I held up my hand, and she snapped her mouth shut. “I heard you. I just couldn’t believe you’d come back to Blueball for something like that.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she snapped right back.

My eyebrows nearly went into my hairline. She was starting to piss me off. “Because you hate this town and were in such a hurry to leave it? Wouldn’t this little fundraiser be a little below you now, TullyStarling?”

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