Page 58 of Staying for You

I fill us each a couple fingers and bring a can of Coke with me just in case she doesn’t drink it straight. When I get back to the living room, she’s sitting sideways on the couch. One knee bent up against the back and an elbow resting over it. She found a throw blanket and has it draped over her bare legs which is both a shame and a blessing.

A shame because it covers up her sexy as fuck legs.

A blessing for the same reason.

A blessing also because she looks so fucking adorable curled up on my couch, fingers tapping against the couch and eyes on the fire which is casting a glow around Cami. It’s something I could get used to seeing but remind myself to get it out of my mind.

“Here you go.” I hand over her glass and she offers up a faint smile.

I sit facing her, our positions a mirror of each other.

“Cheers,” she says, clinking the edge of her glass against mine.

“Cheers.”

“Ready for a story?”

“Am I ever.”

Chapter Seventeen

Owen

“Scottand I met in college. He just never grew up. He’s such a cliché mama’s boy.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, taking a small sip. Truth be told, I’m not a big whiskey drinker and based on the facial expression she made just now when she took a drink also, neither is she. But it’s warming and oddly comforting.

“You know how people roll their eyes at how a son can have their moms wrapped around his little finger? Even as adults?” I want to say not my mom. She was busy sleeping with other men who weren’t my father when I was growing into adulthood, but figure that’s a conversation for another day. But I know what she means, so I nod my understanding and she continues.

“Well, he’s the reason. The poster child, so to speak. And he enjoyed his mom’s attention, for sure. Before you think I’m just overreacting, you need to understand it was far more than that.”

“It always is.”

“I’m sure I had my annoyances for him, too. No one is perfect, I know, but he was… well, a jerk. A lying, cheating, lazy jerk.”

“Cheating?”

She laughs, humorlessly. “Oh, yeah. Several times. He admitted it in the end, after months and years of denial, but my lawyer and I had proof so there was really no other option for him but to do so. That’s part of why it’s been a while since I’ve had sex.” That makes me glad, not that she was cheated on but that she wasn’t with him recently. “Scott and I started good. Happy, even. He was my biggest cheerleader when it came to writing and was incredibly supportive. Then he became resentful of my success and turned into an entirely different person. He would make fun of me for doing a fluff job, even though he didn’t have one of his own, and just… yeah, he was really good about treating me like I was worthless. Then he shifted once again and helovedmy success. Let’s just say, Scott would have excelled as a Stepford Wife.” I get her meaning without her having to explain it.

I look around my home, which I love. I can’t imagine living anywhere else other than here in this little apartment above the lodge in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a lake and forest. Scott and I sound like opposites. I have a flicker of wonder if that’s what she likes and wants in a man, but I extinguish it quickly, reminding myself that she left him. He’s her past and the way she talks, she’s happy if he stays there.

“So that’s Scott.”

I raise my eyebrows and smile wide. “Scott sounds fantastic,” I say with an enormous sense of false enthusiasm.

She’d just taken a sip of her whiskey and spits it everywhere, coughing and lightly punching at her chest. Once she has it under control, she sets her whiskey down with a scowl in its direction and takes a large swig of water. “He really was. I mean, at least I had entertainment when he was trying to sneak around and failing epically. Also, I don’t think I like whiskey.”

That makes me chuckle. I set mine next to hers and grab my water, clinking them together. “I had a feeling. Honestly, it’s not my favorite either.”

“Why do we do this to ourselves? It’s like there’s this new standard that everyone needs to love wine and whiskey and vodka.”

“Yeah. But I probably shouldn’t say much negative about it because that’s what my family has built their livelihood on but… yeah.”

“Diplomatic answer with a lot of truth. I like that.” We watch the fire for a little while then she stands up, walks to the window, the blanket wrapped around her shoulders. The snow hasn’t stopped falling since she came to the lodge hours ago. I can only imagine how many inches there are on the ground already. “Lots of snow already.”

“Right.”

“Thinking I might need to stay in for the night.”

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