Page 26 of Allured By Her

I laughed. “I stayed up way too late and I couldn’t stop until I finished. I need the next book immediately.”

I had to get back to work, but the pull to sit down and talk books with Tenley was intense.

“Just wait until you read book two. Just wait,” she said, backing away from the counter with her order.

I shook some sense back into myself and I headed back to save Lark from the morning rush.

* * *

This time when I took my break, I wasn’t surprised when Tenley sat next to me on the picnic table.

“Rough night?” I asked and she presented me with the cupcake.

“I thought we could split it,” she said, unsheathing a plastic knife from her pocket.

“I don’t have any money, I’m broke,” I said, putting both hands up as if she was robbing me.

“Haha, me neither,” she said, cutting the cupcake in half and sliding it over to me.

“Thanks,” I said, picking it up. The cupcakes at Common Grounds came from Sweet’s Sweets and they were so fucking good, I had to force myself not to eat at least three of them a day. It had been a while since I’d indulged, and my first bite was pure heaven.

“Why haven’t I been buying these?” Tenley asked after her first bite.

“No idea. We’ve both been missing out.”

Tenley didn’t say anything else until after she’d finished her cupcake and wiped her fingers on a napkin she whipped out of her pocket.

“I was up late crying about Shane,” she said. “Just missing him. We used to talk all day, every day. He was the person that I wanted to share something funny with, something sad with. I talked to him about everything and now that I don’t have him in my life for that, there’s this big hole that I can’t stop seeing,” she said. “In case you were wondering.”

“I was,” I said. “But I wasn’t going to push you to talk about it if you didn’t want to.”

She lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “It is what it is. He’s gone from my life right now. I just keep telling myself this is temporary and soon we’ll be back to normal.”

My teeth clamped down on my tongue so I didn’t stomp on her dreams. It just didn’t seem possible that, at this point, Shane was going to open his eyes and realize, OMG, Tenley is his true love all along (cue music), but to point that out to her felt a little too vicious.

She missed him, and as much as I thought he was a giant piece of shit, she loved him and losing him after being together for that many years was going to be rough. It was going to hurt like hell.

“Anyway, enough of that shit,” she said. “What are you doing this weekend?”

“Other than hanging out with my sister and maybe Lark, I have to work.”

“You work here on the weekends too?” she said, and I realized I’d slipped and mentioned my second job. My second sexy job.

“No, I just have a side hustle,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask a ton of questions.

“Doing what?” she asked.

“I have an online store,” I said.

“Selling…” she said, trying to get me to elaborate.

“Jewelry,” I said, panicking.

“Oh, nice, what’s it called? My mom’s birthday is next month, and she loves earrings,” Tenley said, getting out her phone.

“You don’t have to do that,” I said.

“It’s not that big a deal,” she said, an expectant look on her face.

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