Page 199 of Crazy for this Girl

“I still see you standing here.” She keeps her cute demeanor of serious and peeved painted on her face, but it does nothing to make me move just yet.

“Laynee, give me a break. I did you a favor, and I sure as hell did one for me. You weren’t meant for anyone but me, so let’s cut the shit. If you want to pay me back, my price is high.”

“You can kindly go fuck yourself now.”

“I will just as soon as you spread those pretty legs open for me.”

She pushes her cheek out with her tongue, pretending to think about it. “Mhmm…still want you out.”

“Alright.” I tower over her, pressing a chaste kiss to her forehead before turning and walking away. “I’ll let you sit here alone and stew over what my offer was going to be.”

“Not interested,” she says to my back.

“Sure, you’re not.”

“I’m not,” she singsongs.

“Send me an email if you are.” I open the door, walk through it, then stick my face through the opening. “I’ll answer within twenty-four to forty-eight hours.”

She plucks a pen from her desk and chucks it in my direction, but it hits the shield in front of me. I give her a wink and let her stew on my offer—for her to be mine forever with the promise of, in two years, I can ask her to marry me.

I’m a giant jerk.

Like huge jerkaourous because Cal has been so busy with writing up contracts for new vendors, keeping tabs on the California branch while he’s been in Chicago, signing on the Detroit chef that didn’t want a special oven and menu, and scouting out a prospect for a COO for when Elliott heads back to the Miami branch.

I never reminded him that this weekend was the Fourth of July. I didn’t even tell him that I was flying back to North Carolina to my parents’ for the weekend either because I never did take him out of the doghouse this week.

Which makes me feel horrible when he texts me this morning and asks me what I’m doing this weekend.

CAL: What am I doing this weekend to get you to hang out with me?

LAYNEE: Can’t hang out this weekend. I have plans.

CAL: Sitting on my face? Or my taking you out to dinner then you sitting on my face?

LAYNEE: *eye roll emoji*

CAL: What time am I picking you up?

LAYNEE: I really do have plans. Maybe next weekend.

He doesn’t text me back, which proves he’s pissed or maybe busy. But it’s either that or ratting myself out that I didn’t tell him about the annual Fourth of July party.

But what do I have to feel guilty about? He hasn’t been to one in almost two decades.

“Hey.” I glance over my shoulder, finding Jonah smiling at me with a beer in his hand and one for me. “You busy?”

I perk a brow. “Do I look busy?” We’re on a floating dock in the middle of the lake, the same spot I used to spend this party every summer with Cal. People still bring out their grills, coolers, chairs; the insanity always getting a little riskier with each passing year.

“I know better than to interrupt you when you’re deep in thought,” he muses as I pluck my cold Coors Light from his hands. “You almost clocked me when I was six because I scared the shit out of you.” I shrug because, well, he did. “Can I talk to you about something?”

I nod over the bottleneck of my beer. “Yeah, what’s up?”

“So, I wanted to talk to you about my student debt.”

I shake my head as I guzzle down my drink before saying, “No, I told you a million times, I got it. The salary I’m getting—”

“You paid it off,” he claims through clamped brows. “I wanted to come over and thank you.”

---