Page 9 of The Reading

Well, fuck.

*****

Vivian~

Cash Daring wasn’t gay.

Holy shit.

The entire week had been a shitshow, and I had just wanted to go home and forget about this week, Valentine’s Day, my transfer, and everything else. Though I was a big girl and could admit that I was mostly to blame for this clusterfuck, Cash hadn’t needed to be such a prick about everything.

Nevertheless, even after a long week of silent indifference, I couldn’t stop myself when I’d heard a woman’s voice coming from his room. My first initial reaction had been jealousy-verymisplacedjealousy-but a quick reminder that he was gay had helped with that. Still, my curiosity had been peaked enough to forego respect for privacy and barge into his room to see who he was talking to.

“What on earth made you think that I was gay?” he finally asked, his voice an octave too high.

“Mindy Crepes,” I answered like an idiot.

“Mindy Crepes?”

“Yeah…uh…” My eyes began to dart around uncomfortably. “Uh…when I started working at Krusade, she told me that you were gay and not to waste my time with you.”

His hazel eyes nearly popped out of his gorgeous head. “She told you that I was gay?”

“Uh, yeah,” I grimaced, wondering why I ever believed a woman with the last name Crepes.

Cash ran a hand through his dark hair. “She hit on me when she first started working for Krusade,” he informed me. “I turned her down.” The man started shaking his head. “I never imagined that she’d start telling people that I was gay.”

“Maybe it was wishful thinking?” I offered.

He shot me a look. “What?”

“You know…if she believed that you were gay, then the rejection would go down easier,” I explained lamely.

“That doesn’t help me any, Vivian,” he bit out.

“Well, I mean, there’s nothing wrong with being gay-”

“There is if you’renotgay,” he practically yelled.

“Okay, okay…” I drawled out slowly. “Let’s…let’s just calm down. So…you’re not gay. Good. Got it. I take back what I said about you needing to go out and get some dick.” Those hazel eyes shot my way again.“Sorry.”

“This isn’t funny, Vivian,” he snapped, but now that the initial shock was over, it kind of was.

“I never said that it was,” I hedged, trying not to laugh at him.

“I mean it,” he said through that clenched jaw that looked so much sexier now that it wasn’t a gay jaw.

“Vivian-”

“Look, I think that we have bigger issues than you not being gay,” I said, ready to admit to myself that I didn’t want to work for someone else. “Areyou really going to transfer me to someone else?”

His hazel eyes narrowed a bit. “That depends.”

“On what?”

“The real reason you came into my room,” he answered, and every word had a new meaning now that he wasn’t gay. “Was it really because you heard voices? To make peace? What?”

In this moment, all I could think about was Madam Brousseau’s prediction: Your soulmates have already made themselves known. All you need to do is take the time to open your eyes and notice.

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