Page 79 of Blindside Sinner

I shake my head because she’s in there again and I need herout. I’m disappointed when I still care that her eyes are dark and angry. When it still bothers me that her lips aren’t curved into a smile but rather flat and thin, compressed into an angry line.

I can’t stand that I care.

“If you’d just listen to me, I could tell you that I didn’t?—”

“I don’t have time for this.” I stomp through the house and to my home gym.

I don’t need to stand there and listen to her try to justify why she’s going on a date with some Harvard-educated douche bag. The fact that I know he’s Harvard-educated is bad enough.

So yeah, I checked his profile as soon as I got the chance. Yeah, I pulled up his picture and hated that he was good-looking, smart, successful, charitable.

I hated that I cared.

I hate that I still care.

I say it to myself one more time, praying that this time, it’ll stick: “Sloan Reeves is not my fucking concern.”

Just like all the other tries, this one fails miserably.

On my way through the house, I snatch the mail off the table and flip through. There’s another weird letter. Nondescript envelope. Ordinary print. I don’t even bother to open it, just toss it into the trash instead. Whoever’s warning me off Sloan can have her.

I’m swearing off women forever.

40

SLOAN

I’ve tried all week to get out of this date, but to no avail.

I keep telling myself that it’d be best to skip it for the sake of my personal life. If Beck isn’t being a raging dickhead, my workdays are significantly easier.

And make no mistake—this debacle has pushed him to his worst dickhead iteration yet. He snorts and stomps around the house, communicates exclusively in grunts, won’t look me in the eye.

So yeah—I just want a little peace and quiet, that’s all. A little normality.

But we all know that’s B.S.

Because I can’t stop thinking about the one part of the gala I don’t regret: that moment when he had me in his arms, with slow music swelling in the background and the scent of his cologne flirting with my nostrils, when I felt small and mighty and safe and beautiful andseen.So, so seen.

That memory lives in my head rent-free.

But the doctor is insisting and so is the dry-voiced woman from the youth organization. “The money’s been paid,” she’s said repeatedly. “Signing your name at the silent auction constitutes a binding contract.”

I’m fairly certain that’s not legally true, but I can’t afford a lawyer to argue otherwise and she won’t listen to any of my protests.

Point is, I’m stuck.

Three harsh raps sound at my door. “You ready?” Beck asks.

It’s game night tonight. I’ll be driving Beck to the arena, then going to my date with Dr. Love—that’s his real name, I checked—at some swanky restaurant with an unpronounceable French name. Someone else is going to be taking Beck home, because I’m assuming Dr. Love is a talker. Based on the ten paragraph essay he sent me in his introductory “get to know you” email, I’m guessing he is.

The problem is, I haven’t told Beck that yet.

I smooth my skirt, check my sweater and sigh. “I’ll be right out.”

He mutters something about “gonna be late” and stomps off like an ogre. I listen until I can’t hear him anymore.

When he’s gone, I sigh. The reason I haven’t told him about the date tonight is because he spent three days too mad to even look at me, and then when he started speaking to me again this morning, I didn’t want to ruin it.

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