Not You It's Me (Boston Love #1) - Julie Johnson Page 0,9
session we shared not so long ago.
“Thanks,” I whisper when his hands finally drop away, hugging the jacket a little tighter around myself. It’s massive and masculine and still warm from his body. I’m grateful as some of his heat starts to sink into my bones.
There’s a silent moment, where we just stare at each other without speaking, and all I can think is that somehow, though this must be the worst night of my entire life, for just this moment nothing seems broken or messed up or wrong. Somehow, shut away from the world in this town car, all my problems feel fixable. It’s a crazy thought, but I can’t get it out of my head as I look at him.
He’s watching me, eyes still intense. “You okay?”
I nod.
“That asshole back there… was he your boyfriend?”
I nod again.
A scary look flashes in his eyes.
“Well, it’s safe to say, now he’s definitely my ex,” I correct softly, a small smile on my lips.
The scary look subsides a bit. “Good.”
I pause, summoning my courage. “You’re going to miss the rest of the game.”
“I own those seats for the season.” He shrugs. “There’ll be other games.”
“Oh,” I whisper.
And suddenly, we’re silent again.
Thankfully, a voice from the front seat shatters the quiet. My eyes fly toward the sound, and I see a black partition sliding down to reveal a handsome, salt-and-pepper-haired man in his late-forties sitting in the driver’s seat. His warm brown eyes meet mine in the rearview and I smile when he winks playfully in my direction.
“Sir?” His eyes move to the man sitting beside me. “Where to?”
Green Eyes nudges my knee with his, and I look back at him.
“Gemma?”
A warm sensation slides down my spine when he says my name in a lazy voice, like he’s savoring the sound of it on his tongue. I’m momentarily stunned by the fact that he even knows my name, before remembering that Ralph used it at the arena.
“Ye-yeah?” I stutter, feeling a little too caught up in his gaze.
“Where are we going?”
“Oh! Right. Back Bay, please.” I blush furiously as I rattle off Chrissy’s address from memory.
Green Eyes’ brows lift on his forehead, more than likely curious how a girl like me can afford to live in Boston’s most expensive neighborhood. He’s too polite to ask, so I take pity on him.
“My friend Chrissy’s place.” I haul in a deep breath. “I don’t really want to go home, right now. Ralph… well, he’s my neighbor.”
His expression flattens and his eyes, if possible, turn even more serious. “He won’t bother you again.”
His tone is so determined, so sure, I can only imagine what transpired between him and Ralph after I left. I decide some things are better left unknown.
“Oh,” I say stupidly, at a total loss for words. “Well… thanks for that.”
He’s looking at me again, his eyes hyper-alert and full of questions, and it’s more than a little unnerving. I can’t speak with his eyes trapping mine, so I drop my gaze to my lap and clear my throat roughly.
“And thanks for, you know, kissing me and everything.” I start to play with the sun-shaped pendant hanging on a chain around my neck – a nervous habit. “You really saved me, back there.”
I can feel him looking at me, but I keep my eyes on my hands.
“Gemma?”
“Yeah?”
He waits until my gaze skitters up to meet his. The ice in his eyes has melted and I see they’ve gone warm, turning to green pools, though his tone is deadly serious when he speaks again.
“Don’t ever thank a man for kissing you.”
I don’t know what to say, so I just nod as my mind cartwheels madly, searching for some way — any way — to lighten what has suddenly become an all-too-heavy atmosphere.
“So, you don’t regret turning yourself into a public spectacle just to help some random girl with a dickwad boyfriend?” I ask lightly, half-joking.
He leans closer, just the fraction of an inch, but that tiny, insignificant shift seems to suck all the air out of the car. “I can’t imagine there’s any man on earth who would regret kissing you.”
I feel heat flaming my cheeks even redder. There’s no comeback in the world to appropriately counter that statement, so I just look out the window and pretend not to hear the quiet, amused chuckle he fails to muffle.
The car glides through the wet night, the tires kicking up water as we turn onto Comm Ave. The only sound besides the gentle patter of