Page 13 of Leah

She giggled. “Me neither.”

“Well, you danced like crazy.”

“So did you.”

“Yeah, and now my body is broken.”

“Well… it might kick-start with that fine ass.”

I followed her gaze to a nice car that had just parked. Ah, our hot new neighbour. He stepped out, and Melanie moaned in approval. I chuckled at her blatant display of want.

“You can have him,” I whispered to her.

She gasped. “Are you sure? You’ve passed up a lot of guys for me.”

“The only reason I passed up other guys for you was because I was in a relationship.”

Cole was my last relationship. We ended a few months back. He was an engineering student, brilliant and sweet. I got a little freaked out by how serious he wanted things to go. I bailed on the relationship five months in, around the time he told me he had to relocate for a job offer. I jumped straight on that shit, using it as an excuse we couldn’t work with that sort of distance between us. It was actually because I liked him. A lot. He was the kind of guy I was prepared to be intimate with, which was a serious step. And I was terrified of commitment. I couldn’t risk having my heart broken a second time. And Cole, despite being safe and easy, was annoyingly lovable. He was the kind of guyyou could see yourself settling down with. Nothing about him at all screamed rebellion.

But still; I didn’t want to love him.

I didn’t want to love anyone.

I didn’t want to love, period.

Oh, how the tables had turned.

We stepped into the elevator with Hot Neighbour, and he nodded in greeting at us. Melanie stood up straighter, giving him her best flirty smile. I shook my head to myself, knowing damn well that screwing Hot Neighbour wasn’t going to erase all her years of pining for Rome.

“Exciting night?” Hot Neighbour asked us, scanning both of us up and down, as we rode up.

Melanie nodded. “Oh, yeah. Saw a concert in the city. You?”

“Just a night out with some buds.”

“Nice,” Melanie said with approval.

“What band did you see?”

“Fatal Rebellion.”

His brows shot up. “No shit? You know those guys are from here, right? They used to sing at a local bar.”

She smiled. “Oh? Wow.”

“Yeah, they hit it big with a fan made video. Some celebrity’s brat shared it with millions of her followers.”

“You know, that vaguely sounds familiar,” she went on.

I held in my laughter as the elevator doors opened and we all filed out.

“I’m Daryl, by the way,” he said behind us as he went down the hall in the opposite direction.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” she replied, not even offering him her name in return. Oh, sneaky girl.

“Playing hard to get, huh,” I whispered.

“I like when a man chases,” she clarified. “It makes the build-up so much more fun.”

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