Charmed by the Billionaire (Blue Collar Billionaires #2) - Lemmon, Jessica Page 0,76

that unironically, by the way.

Three days later, on a mundane Tuesday, I’m standing in front of the coffee pot in my kitchen waiting for my mug to fill. I’ve had a few days and nights to marinate on the idea of permanence. I came to the same conclusion I had before the engagement party briefly robbed me of my pragmatism.

Permanence is a nice idea, but it’s a myth.

Absolutely nothing in life is permanent. Hell, life itself isn’t permanent. Each of us will hang up our boxing gloves at the end of the last round, no exceptions. Nature isn’t permanent. Trees drop their leaves every fall. Birds crash into windows and break their delicate necks. Gone in a snap. The pink roses I gave Cris withered and died within a week.

Sorry. That was bleak. But it’s the truth. Pretending there is a never-ending daily rollover, or that there’s a way to stretch the perfect now into eternity is a kid’s dream. Being the kid I was, I learned at a young age dreams can turn into nightmares.

So, after a blip of irrationality appeared on my radar, I have once again come to my senses. I properly seduced Cris on Saturday night after we left the club—hey, she’s the one who invited me to guess what she was wearing under her dress. I masterfully steered us out of the choppy waters of commitment and straight into my bed.

A good night turned into a better weekend. She stayed Saturday night. On Sunday, we woke up late and had more awesome sex before she headed home to do the requisite laundry and other unsavory weekend tasks belonging to those of us who practice regular “adulting.”

A splashing sound yanks me from my thoughts. I blink at my coffee mug, currently overflowing onto the counter.

“Shit! Goddamn—” I muzzle the other swearwords I might have said. Cris is in her office and could be on the phone. Two seconds later she bursts into the kitchen, her hand over her chest, alarm in her wide gray eyes.

“I thought there was some sort of emergency out here.”

“There was, but I’m handling it.” I flash her a quick smile as I swap out one mug for another, carefully pouring the excess from mine so I can take a drink without spilling it down my shirt. I set both mugs aside and reach for the roll of paper towels, but she snatches it from me. “Sorry about the shouting.”

She mops at the spill. “Everything else okay?”

Other than feeling totally and completely thrown off every day since Sunday? Everything is peachy. I smile and hope mine is more believable than hers. “Great. You?”

“Oh. Yeah. Great.”

The silence that follows is stifling and for us, incredibly unusual. Maybe that’s what’s throwing me off. The sex on Saturday was amazing, and waking up to her on Sunday felt relatively normal—our new normal, anyway—but then Monday came and… Weird City, population: two.

I want old Cris back. The one I found attractive from afar but whose feelings I didn’t have to worry about hurting.

Trish called yesterday. I didn’t answer. I waited until Cris went home for the day and then I called Trish back. The bad news is her mom died. She was in tears when she told me. I guess there is no good news. The point I’m trying to make is, before Cris and I were sleeping together, I would’ve answered the phone call and not thought a thing about it. Now the idea of letting Cris make reservations for my dates is cringeworthy.

Which begs the question: Will we ever return to normal?

I need to talk to her about it, but not today. I’m too off-kilter today. I would probably make an ass out of myself. Correction: I will make an ass out of myself. The cosmic Magic 8-Ball has spoken. The universe is gleefully fucking with me, and the overflowing coffee mug is just one example of how.

“I knew things weren’t going my way when that file was corrupted first thing this morning,” I grumble, mentally cursing the universe as I help her clean up spilled coffee.

“Is Mercury in retrograde?”

“I can’t blame Mercury for the coffee incident. I zoned out and pressed the brew button twice.” I hold out my hand to take the soggy paper towel from her. “Stupid.”

Our fingers brush and pure electricity skitters up my forearm. My chest tightens and expands before tightening again. I can’t blame Mercury for that either. I don’t know what the hell to blame. I don’t