Page 55 of Mr. Wrong
Carrying it into the bathroom, I shower and get dressed, pulling on a random pair of jeans and a T-shirt that Cassie painted for me last week with my low-top Chucks. Throwing my hair in a ponytail, I grab my purse and am already out the door and halfway down the walk when another text comes in. Thinking its Derek again, I sigh and pull my phone from my back pocket, prepared to drive forty-five minutes in a completely different direction to get to another coffee shop that Derek thinks is a better choice than the one I picked out.
It’s not from Derek, the text is from Lex.
Lex:Don’t forget to
ask Kill for the keys.
I’m not sure what I expected him to say, but that wasn’t it.
Maybe an apology for last night, even though he has nothing to apologize for. As I’m reading it, three little dots appear below the text and I hold my breath, hoping… I don’t know what I’m hoping. Maybe that he tells me not to meet Derek for coffee. That he tells me he’s just as miserable as I am over the way things ended between us and even though we’ve moved into a comfortable friendship with each other, that he hates it as much as I do. That last night made him realize that he misses me. That he’s sorry he left. That he wishes he’d stayed.
Then those three little dots disappear and a text pops up.
Lex:Good luck today.
I hope everything
works out the way
you want it to.
Good luck?
I’m minutes away from leaving to meet my ex-boyfriend who wants me back, by the way, the morning after Lex nearly fucked me to death after five weeks of nothing and all he has to say about it isgood luck?
No.
Oh,hellno.
I start to move again, on a sudden burst of laughter that follows me up the cobblestone path along the side of the house. Through the pretty trellis gate before I hook a sharp left to mount the steep set of stairs that climb the side of the garage.
Standing on the small landing, I lift a hand and pound on the door with the side of my fist. When Killian doesn’t answer the door, I pound harder. “Open the door,” I yell. “I know you’re in there and I’m not going—”
The door is pulled open, mid-pound, so fast I almost end up punching Killian in his scowling face. “Is there something wrong, Ms. Pierce?”
“Yes—there’s severalsomethingswrong—first and foremost, I’ve told you allrepeatedlyto stop calling meMs.Anything. My name isElle,” I snap back at him, dropping my hand to take a step back. “Would it hurt you people touseit?”
The scowl lifts and his features shift into something resembling a smirk. “Ohhh,” he says crossing his arms over his thick chest before leaning against the doorjamb to rake a long, dark look up my frame, from my feet to my forehead. “Now I get it.”
“You get what?” I demand and even though I have no idea what he’s talking about, I feel a warm flush crawl across my skin, just the same.
“What can I do for you,Elle?” he asks instead of answering me.
“Where is he?” I shift to the side a bit and lift myself on the toes of my sneakers so I can see around his massive shoulder and into his apartment. It’s sparse. A round, wooden kitchen table with one chair. An upholstered armchair that, judging by the expensive toile fabric it’s covered in, looks like it might’ve been lifted from the main house, and an antique floor lamp positioned nearby. A framed, tri-folded American flag hanging on the wall next to a framed, black and white photo of a man in what looks like a military uniform.
No television.
No radio.
But there are books.
Lots and lots of books.
The shoulder I’m looking around shifts into my line of vision, suddenly barring my view. “Where iswho?” Killian says. He doesn’t sound amused anymore. He sounds irritated.
I have a feeling thatirritatedis Killian Davis’s natural state of being.
Dropping myself to the flats of my feet, I force my gaze up to meet his. “Lex—where is he?”
