Page 59 of Down & Dirty

Cory cared about me.

It was right there. You could see it all over his face.

And I knew just how much I liked it by the thumping of my heart.

Elle’s encouragement from the other night came back to me. It was ridiculous to imagine that something lasting could come out of this crazy contract we had, but I couldn’t hold onto the lie any more that I didn’t—maybe—want it to. Or at the very least, I wanted to consider the possibility.

I was chewing on what all this meant when another blast of circus music erupted, making me nearly jump off the bed. Damn Tommy for knowing he could just keep calling and my phone would let him through.

“What?” I answered, too wrung out to try and be civil like I always did.

“Hello to you, too, Skylar,” he said, as if he was the bigger person.

“If you want to be a jerk again, I’m hanging up.”

“I wanted to try and talk about this calmly.”

“My relationships are not up for discussion.” I sighed, flopping back into my pillows.

“Not that. I think it’s fucking bullshit, but you can go fuck that crusty has-been, if that’s what you want.”

I bit my tongue, knowing Cory would laugh off Tommy’s insults if he’d heard them himself. But I took offense for him. He was far from crusty, and Tommy knew that if he’d taken one look at those photos.

“Then what?”

He cleared his throat and I braced myself. I knew what was coming. “You said last night you’d pay for that ER visit. Did you mean that?”

I let my eyes drift closed. “Yes. I’ll take care of it.” Not that I had any idea how much that was going to cost. But with what Cory was paying me, I should be okay to manage it on my own.

“Okay, good,” he sighed, ease filling his tone. “I just wanted to check before we sign anything with this wedding planner.”

Ah, right. The real reason we were all in this mess. The wedding.

A flash of Cory waiting for me at the end of a long aisle, flanked by family and friends, and strewn with bright white dahlias, a smile on his face as I made my way toward him on my dad’s arm, tears glistening in his eyes...

“If you’re good with picking up that bill, then I think I’m good.”

Shaking my head, I snapped back to the moment. “Yeah, all set.”

“Cool. I’ll pick Micah up tomorrow morning for the weekend.”

“Yep, okay.”

“And then don’t forget I’m taking him to New Jersey with me for Thanksgiving at Geena’s folks’ place.”

I rubbed at the line forming between my eyebrows. “I haven’t forgotten.”

It would be the first Thanksgiving I’d spend without him since he was born. I was still working out how I felt about that.

There was a moment of silence, and I was about to say goodbye, when Tommy couldn’t help himself.

“I hope you know what you’re doing with Ellis. You haven’t always made the best choices, but he’s a fucking mistake, even for you.”

My pulse was hammering in my temples, and I closed my eyes again as I let out a slow breath. It was something else to have one of your biggest mistakes be the one telling you your judgment was flawed. Tommy probably didn’t even see the irony in that. But I did. And it pissed me off.

“You don’t know anything about him. Or me, for that matter. You never did.”

Somewhere in him, I knew Tommy still thought of himself as a good guy, a guy I could rely on because we both loved the hell out of Micah. But we’d been all sizzle and no heat. What little connection we did have faded the minute he started screwing other women behind my back. So even if the pressures of a new baby hadn’t come along to point out every crack in our relationship, we still would have crumbled. Because he never got me. He didn’t even try.

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