Page 138 of Sweet Hate
Grumbling, I tip my head upside down and run my hands through my hair to brush out any stragglers.
“Aww, but Axeman, you looked sopretty. Your girl would have loved it.”
I stiffen at his mention of Haven. I haven’t heard from her since she text letting me know she got home ok.
I don’t know when I’ll stop making an ass of myself in front of her. I see the path laid out and decide to ignore the niceleisurely walk choosing to jump out of a damn plane without a parachute instead.
How was I not messing up this much as a teenager? Did eighteen-year-old me really have more game or is it just because the stakes are so much higher now?
I know what it’s like to live without her this time.
I spent the last decade existing, but not really living, walking through life in a fog.
No one will ever come close to this woman. She's owned my sorry ass since we were kids, when I saw her sitting right here on the counter, with her wonky pigtails and shy smile. She gave me her cookie, and I gave her my heart at five years old.
Movement in my peripheral vision draws my attention back to Lucas.
He’s stuck the sequins in a row on his forehead and is currently dancing around the bakery, shimmying his chest.
“What the fuck are you doing, you idiot?”
“What? You don’t like my Shakira impression? My hips don’t lie, baby!” This idiot has the most ridiculous grin on his face while he parades around like a prized turkey, and I can’t help the chuckle that slips out.
“Oh good, there you are! What the fuck happened? You’re broodier than Heathcliff today.”
I roar with laughter at that. “Heathcliff? Since when do you know shit about Heathcliff, Sparky?”
“Excuse me? I can read, you know!”
“Yeah, you can, but I’m not sure I know the last time I saw you read anything other than Reddit.”
“Fuck you, Axeman. Now, stop trying to distract me and explain why you walked in here with hair glittering like a dodgy vampire.”
“If you laugh, I will drown you in the ocean and make it look like an accident.”
His lips twitch behind his fingers as he motions zipping hismouth shut. Hell would sooner freeze over before this guy stops laughing. It’s in his DNA. Theperpetual sunshine book boyfriend, if Mavis from the bookstore is to be believed.
“Haven had this sparkly blanket at her place. I went hunting around town to see if I could find the same one for mine so she could feel comfortable and shit when she was there for dinner last night. And…after she left, I apparently fell asleep on top of it.”
“Be honest. You spooned it like the whipped pussy you are, didn't you?”
This guy.
“I spooned it like a motherfucker, yes. Happy now?”
“Who spooned what now?” Beckett asks as he swaggers in and grabs Lucas in a back slapping bro hug.
Shit, I’d forgotten I’d asked him to come in while we were off shift to help me decorate the front.
Beckett looks from me to Lucas and back again, arching a brow.
“Apparently, I missed the party.” He shoves his steel toed boot into the sequins dotted around the floor before pointedly glancing at Lucas’s forehead.
“Our boy was just telling me about how he spent the night cuddled up to a sparkly blanket instead of his girl.”
“Ohhhhhhh shit, the dinner. Tell Dr. Foxy, how did it go? Have you locked her down yet?” He slings an arm around Lucas’s shoulder. “Bro, you should have seen him in the firehouse. She came in the other day, and he stormed right over and mauled her in the engine room. I thought I was gonna have to break out the firehose. They left scorch marks on the floor.”
Lucas lets out a long drawn-out whistle that sets them off cackling like hyenas. Idiots.
