Page 56 of Outside the Lines
God, I hoped she was right.
Another week went by without any sign of Ian and my heart was in pieces. Why had I been so foolish? Hot, horny guy walks in, and I’m the dupe who falls all over himself, for what? A taste of cock? I should stick to hookups on Grindr. Except I hated hooking up.
Ian hadn’t been a hookup. We’d talked. Hell, we’d fucked in front of Lydia. That last night at his place had been astounding. I’d trusted him. Let him tie me up. Gag me. Take me.
The figurine I’d been trying to paint for the last hour tumbled out of my fingers, smearing what little work I had done. I bit back a curse. Not good to swear up a storm in front of customers. Painting wasn’t helping my mood at all, so I set the brush down and packed up my bottles and figures. I’d be able to salvage the warlord I’d dropped, but that would wait for another day.
I burned with sadness, anger, and humiliation. Every day the rock in my stomach grew. I tried to hide it, but Jesse had his worried face on when he watched me. Dexy brought me chocolate and Lydia—
God, I didn’t deserve that woman. Here I was married to her and pining over a guy I’d known a week. Slapassholeon my forehead and be done with it.
Lydia held me when I cried. She listened when I’d ranted and made love to me when I’d needed someone to remind me I was worth loving. But I knew what a strain it was for her to see me like this.
Once the paints and figures were packed up, I headed in back to clean my brushes.
I didn’t know how to get over Ian. Mostly because I didn’t understandwhyI was getting over Ian. We should have had dinner, talked about how we were going to do a long-term poly arrangement. Or broken up properly if long-term turned out not to be what he wanted.
But this? Being dumped without warning, without a fucking word? I shaped the ends of the brushes and set them out to dry. I couldn’t handle this.
I deserved better than that. Lydia deserved to have a husband and a business partner who wasn’t being eaten alive by the pain of what could have been.
“Hey, boss?” Jesse called from the front. “There’s . . . someone to see you.”
I froze and my heart pounded in my chest. Oh fuck, please let it be Ian.Please.
When I emerged from the back room, my heart sank, but my brain did a double-take. It wasn’t Ian—it was Carter Samuels. Pretty much everyone in the shop was watching him, even if they were pretending not to.
“Oh, hey,” I said. “You came!”
His smile was rueful rather than Hollywood. “I said I would.”
At least someone kept their promises. I leaned over the counter. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but my wife will kill me if I don’t tell her you’re here.”
He chuckled. “No, it’s fine.” He shooed me away and I headed in back.
Today, Lydia wasn’t working on her art, but on inventorying our back issues to put up online. “Um, honey?”
“Yeah?” She cocked her head, frowning, and I wondered about my expression.
“Carter Samuels is here to buy comics.”
She slapped a hand over her mouth, but nothing kept the giggles from spilling out. “Really?”
“Really. Come meet him.”
I thought she’d hide in the back, but she didn’t. Maybe it was the shock of him beingherein our world. She kept her cool through the introductions and the handshake. Additional people had wandered in—probably from Howling Moon given their Wolf’s Landing T-shirts, but Marlina couldn’t lay claim to Carter as property of her store, though I bet she wanted to.
I had a small pile for him, based on our earlier conversation, but over the next half hour, Carter rattled off more titles he’d liked back before he’d become famous and we pulled newer comics we thought he’d love. In the end, he had a nice stack of diverse books. Not a single one was Wolf’s Landing, though he did eye the graphic novel of the first book, with a comic version of him on the cover. “It’s still so weird. You’d think I’d be used to it.” He shook his head and focused on the stack in front of him. “Thank you for this.”
When Carter handed me his credit card, I waved it away. “On the house.”
He drew himself up a little taller. “Nope.”
We haggled for a bit, but Carter won in the end. “Dude, I have the money. Save the kindness for someone who doesn’t.”
Heat rose to my face, but I nodded. “I will, promise.” Because I kept my word.
The rest of the day was intense. Suddenly, everyone wanted to know what Carter Samuels had bought and what he read. We sold out of a couple of issues and some of the graphic novels we’d recommended, and people were combing through the older comics to find titles Carter had mentioned.
