Page 13 of Breakaway Heart
“I want to try, Lucy, but I suppose I’m just a lost cause, huh?”
Fuck. Why did he have to look at me like that with those big, dumb, sad eyes? I can’t. Surely, I can’t do this.
In my head, I thought about going back to the resort and then shuddered at the levels of boredom that awaited me there. Was this worse? At the very least, it was something else. I hated that I was even considering it as I looked at his face, eagerly waiting for me to say “Yes” to him for the second time that day.
“Okay. Look. The only endearing thing I remember from your nightmare on Love Villa is that you can actually cook. So, make me dinner, and perhaps tonight you can have an hour of my time.”
Randall’s expression quickly changed again, the softness disappearing entirely. He leaned back in his chair, suddenly inspecting some invisible piece of dirt under his nails.
“Yeah. Nice try. But I’m not doing you.”
“Excuse me!”
“Don’t take it the wrong way. I’m just not going to fuck you, okay?”
“The wrong way!Randall, I said fuckingdinner. What the actual fuck!?”
“Sure, sure. And it’sBobby.”
Now I was mad.
“Randall… Bobby! …Whatever! …I wouldn’t sleep with you if my life depended on it!”
“Alright, keep your panties on. I wasn’t saying you were entirely… Well, y’know…” He leaned in and lowered his voice as he delivered the Randall Jackson version of a compliment, “…Un-fuckable.”
My blood fizzed with anger.
“For you, Randall, that’s exactly what I am.”
I leapt to my feet, red-faced and furious, grabbed my bag, and turned away from him to leave. I’d managed towalk a few paces, nearly far enough to have escaped him forever, before I heard his voice again. This time it was softer and almost wobbled in the air.
“My mom died.”
I paused and then closed my eyes.
Fuck.
I turned back to him. He looked just like a sad little boy who just wanted someone to wrap their arms around him and tell him it would be okay.
Despite every bone in my body wanting to, I just couldn’t walk away from those words. It wasn’t only that I’d lost my own mom when I was seventeen. It was the call of a wounded animal asking for help. You can’t just walk away, can you? I wished for all the world that I could, but I knew who I was and that those words would drag me back to him.
I eyed his sad expression, and then exhaled a long, resigned rush of pained air. I was already getting in deeper than I wanted to be. On the other hand, what the hell else was there out here to entertain me?
I’d just run into the man I’d been watching with glorious fascination for the past few weeks. Sure, for all the wrong reasons, but now here he was, all alone and asking formyhelp. What was the harm?
6
WHAT!?
“You’re doing WHAT!?”
Hannah’s voice made me flinch.
“I know, it’s incredible, right? He came and asked me for help, buying this goddamn ridiculous blow-up unicorn. Then he insisted his name wasBobby. But Han, he literally had his name written in gold, hanging from his neck. It was hilarious.”
“Oh, this is too good! Wait, so you’re having dinner with him? That is…Weird. Also, sort of hot.”
“I mean, he talked me into it. And then I talked myself into it. Hell, why not do somethingweirdfor a minute though, right? It’s better than eating on my own, drinking on my own, and being completely, utterly, alone out here.”
