Page 13 of Lessons in Heartbreak

The newest arrival held his hand out in a soothing gesture. “No, please. I’d still love to meet with you, see how I can help.”

With my fist tight around my shirt, I stared at him. He was nice looking. Tall and wiry. Well dressed. Blue eyes. His lips were a little thin, and he had a baby face. All in all, he was quite unassuming. If I passed him on the street, I wouldn’t have looked twice.

There was no hammering pulse, no goose bumps and hairs lifting on the back of the neck.

Maybe he’d be safe. Easy.

He was a professional. Maybe I could tell him the things that terrified me and what I wanted to accomplish from this.

How desperately I wanted to move through this thirtieth year of my life and not feel so achingly alone. Like I could do something about all the ways I’d lived scared.

But the thought of trying to come back from this, to recover from how I felt in that very moment, made me want to hide for, oh, about six months.

Yes. A locked closet sounded great right about now.

“I can’t,” I said, voice clipped and hard. “I have to go.”

“Ruby, I’m sorry, I—” Griffin held out his hand like he was about to grab my arm. I stumbled back so fast I almost fell into another table.

“Don’t you dare apologize to me right now,” I said fiercely. “In fact, don’t say another word to me, Griffin.”

Then I turned and fled, fumbling with Bruiser’s leash where I’d hooked him up, and once he was clear, I dashed off toward the library.

Chapter FourGriffin

“Shit,” I muttered, watching helplessly as Ruby pushed through the door of the coffee shop.

“You think she’s coming back, bro?”

Bro?I gave him a dry look.

The new guy’s eyes widened when he took in our matching outfits, eyebrows arching in sudden comprehension. “Ahhh ...”

“Where’d you travel in from?” I asked, watching through the floor-to-ceiling windows as Ruby walked briskly across the street and disappeared between two buildings. Her shoulders were pulled up tight by her ears, and her short legs moved way more quickly than I thought possible for someone of her height.

“Vegas,” he answered. He blew out a short breath. “It’s not, uh, illegal there. You know ...”

My mouth flattened. The thought of Ruby Tate paying for a prostitute made my brain melt.

I gave him as friendly a smile as I could manage. “I’d head back to your hotel for the time being. I’m gonna go talk to her.” Slapping a hand on his shoulder, I was mildly gratified to see him flinch. “She’ll get in touch if she needs you.”

“Oh, I think she needed something, considering how much she was paying me to fly over here and show her a few things. None of the really fun things, of course. Can’t engage in those outside of a few very specific places back home. If she wanted to for free, though ...” His eyebrows bounced. “Wouldn’t have been a hardship. I love it when they’re tiny like that. You know what I mean?”

As I pulled in a slow breath, I imagined the headlines if I broke this guy’s ribs in a quaint little coffee shop in the middle of fucking nowhere, Colorado. My agent would probably drop me. Sponsors sure as hell wouldn’t be happy. My brother would shake his head, feeling perfectly settled on his moral high ground as the Good Brother. In fact, I might get arrested, unless I could get him to swing first.

That should be easy enough, actually. If I had any talent in this life, it was pushing the right buttons to really piss people off.

And it wasn’t like I had to break all his ribs. Maybe like, four. He could live with four broken ribs, right?

“Yeah?” I asked, and the quietly dangerous tone of my voice sharpened his gaze. “Maybe you should forget you came here.” I took a step closer, extremely fucking gratified when he had to tilt his head up. “Forget you met her, in fact. I think you’re better off,bro.”

Instead of backing away, though, he lifted his eyes to mine. “You her keeper?”

I loved guys like this. Who thought they could intimidate me. I straightened to my full height—six five—and met that look of his head-on with one of my own. The kind of look I saved for when I lined up on the field before a snap. When I stared down the offensive line and imagined tearing through every fucking body they had lined up against me. The kind I saved for the quarterback right before I took his ass to the ground.

His throat worked on a nervous swallow.

“I’m an old friend,” I said steadily. “And I promise you, that’s so much fucking worse for you right now.”

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