Grey insists on seeing me into mine first, but he holds my door open after both Jitter and I are in the car.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says.
I hold his gaze. “Likewise.”
“You’re playing dirty now?”
“Change might be inevitable, and I might have the utmost respect for you wanting to find peace and closure, but Bean & Nugget serves a vital purpose in our community. I won’t let it go without a fight.”
What he does next startles the crap out of me.
He leans into my car, pecks my cheeks, murmurs, “I hope you find what we need, but even if you don’t, looking forward to every minute of the next twelve days,” and then shuts me inside my car.
My breath whooshes out of me.
It’s game on.
And I don’t know if that’s good or bad.
For either of us.
19
Grey
Sabrina Sullivan has invaded every one of my thoughts at every moment of every day, and it doesn’t matter what I do to try to shake her, she manages to cement herself in there even more firmly.
Worse?
From the moment the words find it left my mouth, hope has taken hold.
Hope that she comes through with an alternate plan to destroy Chandler in a way that I haven’t been able to puzzle out myself.
I’ve been working on it too, but I don’t have the connections or the background knowledge of this town and how he fits in it to have any fresh ideas myself.
Since yesterday morning, the dude-bro’s taking up a lot of space in my head. That five-minute exchange cemented my need to make him pay, not just for what he’s done to me, but to everyone he’s hurt.
Even his wedding getting canceled and him starring as the villain in the world’s most viral video hasn’t changed him.
Since yesterday evening, though, all I can think about is playing dirty with Sabrina.
Kissing the ever-loving hell out of her.
Stripping her out of her clothes.
Licking every square inch of her body.
Making her scream my name in utter ecstasy.
My real name.
And this is a problem.
Because I’m walking around prepared to go Super Vengeance Man while constantly suppressing a hard-on, which makes it hard to think.
You don’t see Thor distracted from saving the world because he’s battling boners.
I’ve sunk to new lows, and I’m now demanding Zen find out every morsel of gossip they can about Sabrina.
I close my eyes, I think about her.
I open my eyes, I think about her.
I go to Bean & Nugget, I think about her.
I get home, I think about her.
I avoid her, I think about her.
I see her, I think about her.
I comp someone’s meal because I heard them compliment another customer, I think about her.
I hold a door for someone, I think about her.
I call the number on the collar of a stray dog sitting outside the café, I think about her.
A less chilly breeze blows, and you guessed it, I think about her.
Fine.
Fine.
I’m destroying Chandler Sullivan because he made Sabrina cry.
Fuck everyone else in town.
He’s going down because he made Sabrina cry.
That’s the bare, simple truth of it.
“You didn’t get anything out of her old gymnastics teacher?” I ask Zen on our way into Bean & Nugget early Tuesday morning.
“I learned I can still do a cartwheel,” Zen reports.
“I meant anything helpful.”
“If you ever need to torture me, you should hold me upside down, because while I can cartwheel like a nine-year-old—that’s all momentum—I can’t handstand to save my life.”
I stop at the back door, hands freezing, toes going numb, and give my nibling a you know that’s not what I mean look.
As usual, Zen is immune, but they smile as they finally give me the information I’m waiting for. “Sabrina Sullivan was mouthy but mostly walked the line of not being too mouthy while being friendly and helpful when she took gymnastics as a kid. She would’ve gone a lot further if she hadn’t twisted her knee in second grade, which her teacher suspected was a fake injury, but could never prove. And she also said if a kid didn’t want to be in gymnastics, then it’s better for them to find what they wanted to do. And considering Sabrina was, in fact, born in the kitchen right next to the sink and basically grew up there, there’s no question Bean & Nugget is where she belongs.”
“It took you five hours last night to find that out?”
“No, I stuck around and did an adult gymnastics class.”