Page 82 of Not That Impossible

I was busily deleting the nonsense word by frustrating word when the front door opened and shut. “Jasper?” Adam called out. “You here?”

“Yes!”

“Good. Okay. Are you ready for this?”

“Probably not.”

“Close your eyes. Don’t ask questions. Just do it.”

“Don’t be naked. It’ll never work between us. I’m in love with your cousin.”

He gave a short laugh. “Not naked. In love with Ray. Close your eyes!”

I did as I was told. Adam came in and walked up to me. I felt his body heat as he came close, then sensed him standing off to one side of my desk.

“Okay,” he said. “Open.”

I did. “Adam!” I gasped.

He was holding a huge frame up against the wall, above my MacBook.

He’d had my article blown up and framed.

“Ta-da,” he said.

My eyes stung and I bit my lip.

“Oh no,” he said.

“I’m okay. I’m okay!”

“This is not what okay looks like, Jasper,” he said, and propped the frame against the wall. He grabbed my cheeks and angled my head back, looking down at me with concern. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing! My life is spectacular!” I gestured at the framed article and made an incoherent noise. “Thank you, seriously.”

He tugged the sleeve of his hoodie over his hand and gently blotted my face. “Uh-huh.”

My lifewasspectacular. I loved being a personal trainer, I was making progress as a journalist, I had a great writing hobby which would get back on track any day now…and I was getting over Liam.

Iwas.

18

Iwas not getting over Liam.

It was almost two months since that afternoon I’d thought he was coming to arrest me and we’d ended up in bed.

Two. Months.

I could recall in exquisite detail the sensation of his heavy body moving over me, his heat, the flash of his eyes. I could still feel his lips on mine.

I remembered it all, no matter how hard I tried to forget.

I’d cut myself off from writing Liam Nash fanfic. Matters hadn’t improved there, either. One morning I’d read back my latest attempt, realised that it wasn’t healthy that I kept writing myself out of my own stories, whether I was getting vented into space or watching some other guy get it from Liam, and went cold turkey.

The turkey was so cold, it was in a deep freeze; I hadn’t even opened up a document in weeks. Not even to write an article, which had freaked Ralph out.

He was used to fending off my pitches on a regular basis. After I’d gone quiet, he called me into his office.

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