Page 6 of You Were Mine

Four words and a lot of explaining.

I’d have to explainwhythe model makes me jealous. And that’s not a can of worms I want to open. The thing with Mark is that he’s oblivious to love. I’m fairly convinced that I could stage the most obvious love confession ever, and he’d think it wassome kind of joke. Maybe that’s my fault. I’ve gone pretty far to play pranks on him, after all; multiple times.

Maybe that’s why he hasn’t picked up on all my not-so-subtle hints. Or maybe he just doesn’t like me and is trying to let me down gently. It’s hard to tell with him.

I’m sure it’s just that Mark wouldn’t know love or romance…or evenattractionif it hit him in the face with a sledgehammer.

“I can’t help but wonder, though,” Mark muses, looking at his hard cider as if it might hold the answer he seeks.

I mentally shove aside my own conflicting feelings. Either Mark reallydoesn’tknow I like him, or he does know and just doesn’t share my romantic feelings. Neither one is his fault, and the gentlemanly thing to do is to smother my jealousy and do what makes Mark happy, like finding this model he thinks he knows.

“I can see why you’d remember someone like that,” I say. “He wasn’t bad-looking.”

“Drop-dead gorgeous, actually.”

I might’ve been checking him out a bit myself. Not because I’m necessarily interested in him, but he’s obviously an attractive man. And I like attractive men. I can only imagine how much work it takes to get that much definition in his pectorals. Definition? My, oh, my! An understatement.

Mark sighs and leans back against the sofa. “I’m beginning to rethink telling you not to buy new lights,” he says.

I laugh. “When are you going to learn that I’malwaysright?“ I tease.

“When youare, for the first time,“ Mark replies, taking a sip of his cider.

“You are something else,” I say, smiling and shaking my head.

Something else, indeed. Warmth floods my face. He’s always been something else.

“I don’t know, though,” I say, nudging the lights with my foot. “After thatlonglecture you gave me about the waste created by consumerism... Karl Marx got nothin’ on you.”

I don’t have a clue whether Karl Marx would care about what I just said, but he’s the only communist I know, except for Putin, I guess.

Mark rolls his eyes. “This wouldn’t be a problem if you hadn’t just thrown the lights into a box and called it a day.”

But Ididn’tjust throw them in a box and call it a day. I’d very carefully rolled them up and packed them away. There’s only one logical explanation for these lights being so tangled, and it’s clearly that some sort of evil elf, or fairy or poltergeist or something anyway, sneaked into the container of lights and messed them up. Naturally.

I smirk and drop the lights back onto Mark’s lap. “Maybe I just thought we’d untangle them together. Call it a bonding opportunity.”

“Bonding? If I spend any more time with you, I’m going tobecomeyou,“ Mark replies, “and let’s be real. The world only has room foroneLogan Smith.”

“Considering how common my name is, I’m sure there aremanymore of me,“ I joke.

Mark rolls his eyes and rather forcefully shoves the tangled lights back toward me. “I swear,” he says. “I think I died long ago, and you’re some harpy poking me in the ass.”

I grin and set my drink aside, to ineffectually try to force the strands of lights into submission. If this was Hell, I’m fine with it.

Chapter Three

Mark

“Do you want to have sex?” Logan asks.

Suddenly. Completely out of the blue. We weren’t even talking or doing anything related to sex. We were just decorating for Halloween. I drop my cardboard box of glittery skulls onto the floor. “I’m game,” I say.

“Roleplay?” Logan inquires, grabbing one of the skulls.

What a weirdo.

“What? You going to be Macbeth?” I asked.

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