Page 11 of Craving Francesca

I’d somehow imprinted on him or something. No other guy compared to him. Sex with anyone else didn’t appeal. I wanted that night back, before he’d tossed me my clothes and told me he’d had fun.

Mostly, I wished things were different, and that pissed me off more than anything. Imagining any kind of relationship with Gray was pure fantasy, and I’d grown out of those in high school. I knew better.

I scowled as I parked on the street outside Myla’s house—my house for a couple more days. There were so many people parked outside there was no room for me to park in our driveway. Grumbling under my breath, I grabbed my bag and headed toward the house. I wasn’t in the mood to deal with anyone, much less a party or whatever the hell was going on.

“You’re home,” Myla called, sticking her head out of the kitchen. “We got pizza!”

“What the hell is everyone doing here?”

She looked at me in confusion. “They’re here to move you into your new house,” she replied slowly. “Remember?”

“No, we’re supposed to move tomorrow,” I corrected, my stomach sinking.

“We’re doing it tonight,” she argued. “We just talked about this on Wednesday. Remember, I told you that more people were available tonight, and you said that was fine?”

“Right,” I said, trying not to wince. I had no idea what she was talking about, but I was sure the conversation had happened exactly like she was describing. I’d just only been half listening. Jesus, I was so wiped. I just wanted to crawl into bed. “My bad.”

“Good news is there are enough of us here, we’ll probably be able to get you all moved and set up, and you can sleep in your new room tonight!” She smiled a little nervously, and I felt like shit.

No matter how often Lou and I had reassured her that wewantedto get our own place, she still felt guilty we were going because she’d moved Cian in. And yeah, that was the reason—but there wasn’t any resentment about it. It was time. They deserved their space to build a life, and I was happy as hell for my friend. She’d been mooning over Cian for years.

“Awesome,” I replied, smiling at her. “I’m just going to go put this down.”

She nodded and disappeared again. I let my shoulders slump. I really, really, did not want to move tonight. Just the thought of lugging boxes of random shit to the new place made me want to cry. I shuffled down to the door to my room and stopped abruptly in the doorway.

The dresser was gone. The boxes I’d had along the wall were gone. Even the curtains were gone. The only thing left was the four-poster bed that I’d found at an estate sale, but that had already been stripped of the linens and was currently being dismantled.

By Mick and Gray.

“I’m calling the cops,” I said loudly, clutching imaginary pearls. “I’ve been robbed.”

Mick laughed. “You know better than that. Someone robs you, you call the club.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be helpful since the club’s robbing me,” I pointed out.

“Rumi and Jamo carried your dresser over already,” Mick said with a grunt as he and Gray leaned the mattress against the wall. “Someone else grabbed the boxes.”

“Multiple someones,” I said, moving farther into the room. “There were like fifteen boxes in here.”

“I grabbed a couple,” Mick confessed. “I didn’t want to carry Lou’s boxes, so I rushed in here.”

I chuckled. “I guarantee her boxes were heavier.”

Gray finally looked at me, his brows furrowed in question.

“She’s got a thousand books.”

“At least,” Mick agreed.

Gray nodded in understanding.

“Aren’t you guys going to eat?” I asked, still loitering awkwardly just inside the room. I wanted to help, but there wasn’t anything for me to do.

“We’ll grab something as soon as we’ve got this moved,” Mick replied, shooting me a grin as he lifted the bed slats off the frame.

“Give me those,” I said instantly, reaching for the pieces of wood before he could hand them to Gray. “I’ll carry those over to the new house.”

“You sure?” Mick asked, handing them over as he pulled them up. “How many of them do you want?”

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