The Best of Winter Renshaw - An 8 Book Collection - Winter Renshaw Page 0,141

I catch my reflection in the mirror, only this time I look like a girl who’s just eaten a heaping serving of crow. “I … I just assumed you didn’t want to hang out and you were just giving me some generic excuse because that’s what guys do when they get bored. I … I thought you were bored with me. Isaiah … I’m sorry.”

I could apologize a hundred times and it’d still barely put a dent in just how remorseful I am in this moment

Exhaling, I admit, “I spent all morning writing you off.”

“I didn’t mean to be so vague,” he says. “It’s just, we hadn’t talked about my mom and I didn’t know what was going on. Also, I hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. I just wanted to go home and get some sleep. The last thing I want is for you to assume I was blowing you off. I’m not that callous. And I didn’t get bored with you.”

Maybe a part of me wanted to believe he was some jerk—if only because it’d make saying goodbye and letting him go and knowing that I’m never going to see him again … that much easier.

Fuck.

I bury my head in my hands when I realize the worst part about this entire situation.

I’m falling for him.

And I know this because I wouldn’t have gotten so worked up today if I wasn’t.

“You still want to hang out?” he asks. His words blanket my hard feelings.

I can’t say no.

So I don’t.

Twelve

Isaiah

* * *

Saturday #7

* * *

I’m so tired I can hardly function, but I didn’t want to miss our last Saturday together. I’m nothing if not a man of my word, a man who respects obligations.

“Hey.” She answers her door in sweats and a cut-off t-shirt, her dark hair piled on top of her head and her full lips glistening with a fresh coat of chapstick.

On the phone earlier, I told her I needed to go back to sleep for a few hours, and that I’d be fine with staying in tonight. With her. She volunteered her place and I promised I’d be there no later than seven.

“I’m so sorry about earlier,” she says, apologizing yet again.

“I told you it’s fine.” I close her door behind me, glancing at the TV screen in her living room, which is paused on the opening credits of Stranger Things.

I want to kiss her. I want to press her against the wall, peel her clothes off of that taut body, and devour every inch of her.

“Melrose is gone tonight,” she says, biting back a smile that can only mean one thing.

“And your point?” I tease, feigning ignorance. I can beat around the bush with the best of them.

She shrugs. “I’m not trying to make a point, Corporal. Just stating a fact.”

“If you want me, just say so.” My cock strains in my jeans. I wasn’t expecting to walk into this straightaway tonight. I thought maybe it’d take a little flirting, a little liquid courage.

“All I want is to have a little fun.” She winks before slipping her hand into mine and leads me to the sofa, pulling me down beside her. A second later, she’s reaching for a bottle of red wine and two stemless wine glasses.

“I don’t know if you drink wine,” she says. “But you’re drinking it tonight.”

She hands me a glass before clinking hers against mine and taking a sip.

Twenty-four hours from now, I’m going to be halfway across the world. Forty-eight hours from now I’ll be a world away from this … from her. But I try not to think about those things. Nothing good can come on fixating on shit you can’t control, and I’m actually looking forward to getting out of the States for a while.

I kind of like being a world away sometimes. I wouldn’t have reenlisted if I didn’t.

“I had fun this week,” she says, head tilted as her pretty eyes rest on mine.

“Same.” I take a sip of the wine, which is sweet and goes down with a smooth, easy finish.

“Do you ever write letters when you’re gone?” she asks. “Like letters back home? To friends or family?”

I shake my head. “Nah.”

“Why not?”

“Not much of a letter writer,” I say. “Some of the guys sign up for these pen pal services, but that’s not something that’s ever appealed to me.”

“Can I send you letters?” she asks. Her question catches me off guard and I need a minute.

“Why would you want to do that?”

She shrugs. “Doesn’t it