Page 36 of Ghosted By Texas

Austin chuckled at my explanation. “Well, maybe we’ll have to grab you one to go then. You can take it home to your freezer-like apartment.”

“Oh, hush. My apartment is not that cold. In the summer, most people would kill to be able to keep their places that temperature.”

I wanted to get lost in his smile and run my hands across his thickly stubbled jawline. He must not have shaved for a couple days, because if he waited one more, he’d have a full beard instead of the neatly manicured look he seemed to wear since I first saw him again. It did lovely things for his appearance, that much was for sure. Clea told me he looked like a lumberjack in a business suit the day he showed up at her office. I had to agree with her assessment.

“What are you thinking about over there?”

“Trees.”

“Trees?” He asked and it was hard to tell whether he thought my answer was amusing or worrisome.

“Yep, and how you would look while hanging out shirtless in the forest, chopping those trees down.”

“Not that I’m complaining about you wanting to see me shirtless, but what the hell, Becs?”

He had decided on amused, and I loved the way it warmed his dark eyes and made his smile seem so much more vibrant. I shrugged my shoulders at him as I relished another spoonful of my soup.

“Look around, I was going with the vibe of the place,” I explained my new fetish away, rather than throw my best friend under the bus. It went without saying that her new boyfriend probably wouldn’t want to hear about how she thought he looked like a suited-up lumberjack, ruggedly handsome, or anything else. Knowing the Mercer boys as little as I did, there was one thing that no one could miss. They were a bit competitive with one another. It would be something Austin would gloat to his brother about.

“Well, don’t freak out if I bring an axe to the bedroom one day. It’ll be strictly for roleplaying purposes.”

I squirmed in my seat and tucked into my soup rather than grabbing Austin’s hand and running as fast as possible straight to the hardware store and then the nearest hotel. He must have seen the flash of heat in my eyes before I lowered them because the man sucked in a harsh breath.

“Jesus, Becs, you’re killing me right now. Take your time with the soup or I might embarrass myself when I have to stand up.”

“There’s nothing embarrassing about you,” I disagreed. When my eyes lifted to meet his, they were full of humor and heat, two of my favorite things on a man. Austin Mercer was trouble and unfortunately, he was just my type.

To my surprise, and despite the heat we’d experienced at lunch, Austin dropped me off at my apartment with the promise to ‘see me soon’.

He didn’t text or call that night and neither did I. It took a few hours of digesting what happened at lunch to really let it settle in that I’d agreed to date Austin again. Was I a complete moron? Probably. There was just that certain something about him that was irresistible to me. The man was everything I ever wanted in a partner. He would have been absolutely perfect if not for the best friend/fuck buddy situation that followed him around like a shadow.

That left me wondering what exactly I needed to do about the situation. They worked together, and would no doubt be closing down the bar with one another more often than not. Could I handle it if he came home late? We didn’t even live together, so how would I even know? The constant worry about what they might be doing together in the backroom, or after hours, or… Yep, I was going to drive myself insane with worry.

Either I had to let the past go, and trust that Austin would be up front and honest with me, or I had to let the man go for good and admit that there was no way to properly handle his relationship with Jordan. Since he admitted that they continued their fuck buddy arrangement over the six years since our last non-breakup, breakup, that made things infinitely harder to navigate than before. Instead of two years of on and off sexual activity, I was faced with them having almost a decade’s worth of a sexual arrangement and even longer as close family friends.

I fell asleep that night with a tummy full of the extra order of soup Austin insisted that I take home with me. My mind was full of questions, and they translated into a rough sleep and multitude of nightmares where I lost Austin over and over again to the woman who had been at the root of everything.

When I got to school the next day, Louise in the front office stopped me. “Wait! Rebecca, you have a delivery here.”

“A delivery?” I tried to think of any supplies that might have been ordered for my classroom, but sadly the last grant I applied for had been denied. It went to the rival school across town instead because they were deemed more in need then the school I worked for. That sucked, because their school was notorious for funding the arts programs while mine was not. The school I worked for funded sports programs, often to the detriment of the arts.

“Here you go,” she hefted a large bouquet of flowers in a beautiful pink crystal vase onto her desk. “I left them sitting on the floor, so you’d be surprised when you first saw them. Are they from that handsome young man who came to see you yesterday?”

Louise was a nosy old bat, but she was sweet too, so I couldn’t very well tell her to mind her own fucking business. “I don’t know who they’re from.”

“The card said, Austin,” she informed me with a nod of her head, as if she’d done me a favor by reading my private message.

“Why did you read my card?” I snapped, unable to hold back my irritation. I had a thing about privacy and the fact that I didn’t like mine violated.

She huffed out an indignant sound before sputtering her answer. “W-well, I had to know in case you asked.”

“For future reference, I won’t ask you, I’ll just read the card myself. Thank you,” I added at the last even if it did come out sounded a bit vitriolic. Then I took my flowers down to my classroom and pulled the card out of the damn envelop it was tucked into for privacy’s sake. Louise could kiss my ass. It wasn’t like it was a simple card where the message was easily seen without prying. She had ripped the seal on the envelope open.

Becs,

Dinner tonight and I won’t be dropping you off alone this time.

XO,

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