Page 1 of #Bossholes

ONE

Kinsley

“I’m sorry,but this isn’t working out.”

My fingers twitch around my iced caramel macchiato and I lean forward, quickly glancing around the crowded coffee shop. There’s no way he’s breaking up with me, right? Not here. Not in the middle of our Monday morningdate. Not right before we both go to work for the day. “I’m sorry, what?”

“This isn’t working out. It’s not personal.” Brian shrugs, leaning back and crossing his legs before giving me a smile I want to slap straight off his face. “It’s not you, it’s me.”

“What’s you?” My whisper is harsh, and I grip the small table between us to keep myself from launching across the damn thing and strangling him. “Are you kidding me right now? Is this because I couldn’t come over last night?”

He laughs, but it’s not the easy-going chuckle that I’m used to. This has an edge to it. A hardness I’ve never heard from him. “Or the night before or the night before that.”

“You know?—”

“Yeah, yeah. Your helpless little brother needs you at home, and you can’t be gone the whole night. Trust me, I’ve heard allthe excuses. It was cute the first time, but got old real fucking fast.”

My heart hammers in my chest, my teeth grinding so hard I’m surprised they haven’t turned to dust. I take a deep breath and then another, but it does nothing to settle the anger, the rage, simmering through my veins right now. My helpless little brother? He’s not helpless—he’s deaf and barely thirteen. There’s no way I could leave him home alone all night.

What if there was a fire or some other emergency in the middle of the night? He couldn’t hear the alarms; he’d never know. If something happened to him because I wanted a night of fun, I’d never forgive myself. I get him up for school. I make sure he has breakfast.

He doesn’t have anyone else. It’s him and me against the world.

Brian knows all this.

It was never a secret. I told him everything on our first date, and he said it was endearing. Fucking endearing. And now he wants to throw it in my face.

Helpless.

He has to be fucking kidding me. This is why his ass is breaking up with me in a public place. He doesn’t want a scene. He wants me to quietly accept this and disappear without a fight.

Well, I’ve got news for him. If he wanted me to hold my fucking tongue, he never shouldn’t have put my brother into this conversation.

“My brother is half your age, but already twice the man you’ll ever be. You’re?—”

“He’s not the problem. You are.” Now it’s his turn to lean forward,a grin spreading across his face.

I suck in a mouthful of air, the anger morphing into hurt, and the fight just drains out of me.

We were only together for two months so it shouldn’t bother me, but it does. Brian was the first guy I’ve dated since my parents died and okay, if we’re being honest, the first real boyfriend I’ve had since middle school. I wasn’t sure if he was going to bethe one, but I really cared about him, and I thought he cared about me.

I liked him.

I—

“You’re nothing but a frigid bitch. A real ice queen. I’ve gotten more action from a coat rack than from you.” His lips twist into a sneer, and this Brian sitting across from me is a stranger. Gone is the Brian who’d hold my hand after a date, who’d rub his hands up and down my arms when I got cold, who’d make me laugh after a bad day. “I thought dating a virgin would be fun. You’re basically a wooden board with tits. At this point, I wouldn’t fuck you with someone else’s dick.”

My stomach twists into tiny painful knots, and my grip tightens on the table. I’m completely shocked, frozen in place, despite my brain screaming at me to dump the rest of my coffee over his slicked back blond hair and get the fuck out of here. But I can’t bring myself to do it. I can’t move.

People around us are whispering, pointing our way, and my face heats.

I’m mortified. Angry. Heartbroken. Rejected.

This is why I don’t date, why I’m afraid to put myself out there. I never should have listened to my friends. I should have kept my nose in my books where true romance lives instead of trying to find my own happily ever after. It’s not for me, and maybe it never will be.

My hands tremble, but I manage to pick up my coffee, give Brian a curt nod, and head for the door.

He’s right. I’m a twenty-three year old virgin, and I have no idea what I’m doing when it comes to men. It’s cute in high school, not so much in the real world.

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