Page 400 of Small Town Firsts
“Damn cards.”
I turned the deck up to see what the shadow card was and found The World.
Endings and beginnings.
Then I looked at the three of swords piercing the heart. Was that my future or was I just afraid that it would be? The Ten of Swords spoke of endings as well. Of working through the pain, but with the hope of something new on the horizon.
Was PMS my new horizon or the pain I had to work through?
That was the bigger question.
“Ryan! What are you doing in there? Food is ready.”
“Coming,” I called.
I swiped up my cards and stuffed them in my hoodie pocket. Dealing with my mother’s love troubles was definitely easier than trying to decipher my own.
TWENTY-FIVE
“You liked working with me?”In the silence of my office, my voice boomed out at a level not appropriate for the words I was about to utter.
And I. Did. Not. Care.
“You tied up my cock with my belt. That goes beyond chapter ten in the employee handbook. Goddammit.”
I punctuated that statement with a kick against my desk. Then when that didn’t have the desired effect, I swept my arm across the tabletop, sending papers, pens and even the phone flying.
Satisfying crunches and cracks filled my head, but it wasn’t enough. I lifted my arm and was about to dispatch the computer as well when my door flew open and my brother sailed across the room, catching the computer like a firefighter swooping in to save a flailing baby.
“I was breaking that,” I muttered before turning away to brace my hands against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that fronted my prison.
But for a few days, it had felt like less of one.
And I’d felt like more.
I’d seen only possibilities. Options. Walking away from the firm was letting my father down, but I fully intended to find someone capable to take over for me. Maybe Bishop.
Maybe even Dex.
Now it seemed futile. I didn’t want to be a divorce attorney any longer, but had I just quit my job only to have more time to consider what exactly I’d done?
More time to spend alone with my new cat, who much preferred she who would not be named.
My brother placed the computer back on my desk and quietly closed my office door. It was late afternoon, and I’d spent a chunk of it making phone calls so I could pace a tread in the carpet beside my desk. I’d been too keyed up, wondering where the hell Ryan was. What she was doing. If she was okay.
Ifwewere okay, as lowering as that was to admit.
“I’m getting married to a stripper I met in Southampton. Will you be my best man?”
I gave him a dismissive glance over my shoulder. “Yes, as soon as I draw up your prenup.”
“Is that how you view true love? I thought you were running off to embrace your inner love child or some such bullshit.” He sat across from my desk, shaking his head of sun-bleached hair. All he needed was a large golden dog beside him and a surfboard to complete the look.
“Wanting to do something different has nothing to do with embracing my inner child. And get your feet off my desk, you heathen.”
He didn’t move a muscle. “Stop watching me in the glass and face me.”
“Make me.”
