My Almost Ex (The Greene Family #2) - Piper Rayne Page 0,28
it off. “Never mind. You’re his brother. I shouldn’t be asking you.”
“Technically, I’m only his stepbrother,” he says, a grin tipping his lips.
I wipe the tears. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t unload all this on you.”
“It’s okay. It’s the most you’ve ever talked to me.”
“Really?”
He nods. “We were friendly and all, but…”
“Then you must really think I’m crazy.”
“I think you’re confused, and I think you need someone to talk all this out with.” He pours another shot. “In my experience, alcohol cures all.”
I laugh and he clinks his shot glass with mine, but just as I have the shot glass to my lips, a pounding sound rattles the front door. We both turn toward the noise. Adam is pointing at Jed and swearing.
Jed laughs. “I wouldn’t worry about Alicia if I were you.” He rounds the bar and unlocks the door.
Adam comes in, takes the shot glass from my lips, and tugs on my hand. “Let’s go.”
“What? Why? I’m talking with Jed.”
Jed leans against the wall by the door with his arms crossed and a smug smile.
“Getting drunk at ten in the morning isn’t going to bring back your damn memory,” Adam grumbles.
“No, but it was helping her forget the present. Sometimes people need that too,” Jed says, waving at me as Adam leads me down the hallway and out the back door.
“So now you want to talk to me?” Lucy asks when we’re standing outside my truck.
Seeing her in the brewery with Jed pissed me off. It could be she doesn’t remember that he’s my stepbrother or—what am I saying, she probably does, but what if… I can’t even allow myself to think about her with anyone else, let alone someone from my family.
“Drinking isn’t going to solve this.”
Her eyes are rimmed with red and it’s clear to me she was crying to Jed. Which makes me angry for a whole other reason. “He suggested it, and last I checked, you just asked me to sign divorce papers.”
I roll my eyes, but she holds my gaze. I swear she could scare away a lion.
“Come on. You want to try to remember something, I’m taking you somewhere.”
“Where?”
She doesn’t get in the truck, so I go around and open the door, waving my hand for her to climb on up. “You’ll see.”
“How do I know you aren’t going to throw me off a cliff?”
“What are you talking about?” I scowl at her.
“Well, you’re angry and you want to divorce me. Maybe you’ve decided to get rid of me. I’m sure I come with some life insurance money.”
“You’ve been with your mom for too damn long. Get in the truck.”
She crosses her arms and juts out her hip. I groan. Clearly she didn’t lose her stubbornness.
“Please get in the damn truck.”
Her eyebrows raise up to her hairline.
“Luce…y!”
“Why do you keep doing that?” Her arms drop to her sides.
“Do what?”
“Put the y after my name. If you used to call me Luce, then just call me that.”
I shake my head. “Please just get in the truck.”
“Tell me and I will.” She walks toward the truck, stopping right in front of me.
She looks so good in her workout gear. The way the leggings hug her ass and show off how strong her thighs are. She used to be able to hold herself up when I’d urge her to wrap them around my waist so I could fuck her against the wall. After we got married, we couldn’t keep our hands off one another. Every time I came home, she’d be wearing some lingerie thing or another, and one time she was cooking naked with a see-through plastic apron on. I shift my weight to accommodate for the half chub in my pants now. Great.
“Because I called you that when we were together.”
“So now I’m just Lucy to you?”
I nod, unable to tell her that if I allow myself to call her Luce, then I’m admitting to myself that she still has the power to hurt me. It’s stupid but necessary.
“Okay,” she says and climbs into the truck.
I shut the door behind her and round the back, once again second-guessing agreeing to this stupid plan. Now I have to sit in the cab of my truck and trust myself not to cross the line I desperately want to cross. Especially after my brief stroll down memory lane about how we used to fuck like bunnies in what now feels like another lifetime.
She puts on her seat belt and looks at me with expectancy.