getting involved with anyone right now, but recent events have made me take a hard look at the life I’ve lived. I almost died six years ago in an accident that could have been prevented. And while the accident stole my soccer career, my heart, and almost everything else important to me, I still haven’t lived a life I can be proud of. Addison is no doubt a beautiful woman, and she has definitely caught my attention. But if going home with men who look like they stepped off the pages of a designer magazine is her idea of a good time, neighbors is all we’ll ever be. My life is complicated, I don’t do casual, and I don’t play games. I won’t be giving myself away piece by piece. When I find the right woman, it’s going to be all or nothing.
“You’d do him?” Paige is staring across my balcony to Damian’s, taking in the items that litter the small space. A few T-shirts are hanging out to dry, there is a soccer ball and a pair of cleats, and an unused surfboard lies in the corner. An abandoned coffee cup with a half-naked girl dancing on a pole decorating the white ceramic sits on the outside table. Typical male.
“Paige, is sex the only thing you think about?” Mia asks.
I’m on my balcony with my two best friends as I re-hash my Matt fiasco and hopefully get a glimpse of my sexy new neighbor. So far, he hasn’t made an appearance since he dropped me at my door last night.
“Mia, get with the program. Addy needs to rid her memory of all things Matt, banish him permanently. A sexy new neighbor may be the perfect answer.”
Mia pushes her glasses further up on her nose and scowls.
I’m enjoying this. Sitting back and watching my friends duke it out over what’s best for me. I love that they care so much, but really, I’m not a charity case.
“His name’s Damian Walker.” I take a sip of my own coffee as we eat breakfast and enjoy the view of the ocean in front of us. They had both cancelled on me last night, and I was left hashing out my Matt disaster on my own. That’s never a good scenario.
Luckily, I had the mental image of Damian’s body to distract my mind from obsessing about how I was going to spend the next five years extracting Matt from my memory. There’s no question, someone like Damian would do miracles for erasing ex-boyfriends, but dipping my toes in that water would only complicate my life further. While having a casual fling with my sexy neighbor would be a great addition to check off my bucket list, it’s not the best idea for keeping up neighborly relations.
Well, maybe it is, but not the type of long term relations I’m looking for.
The fact that my mind had been vividly running through every detail of Damian’s bare chest since yesterday morning is a small fact I’d like to keep to myself. I had absolutely been checking out his abs and his sweaty body. He’s built, really freaking built, with the abs of a warrior. I hadn’t noticed at first, but he has a scar that trails the length of his torso, from his armpit down to his hip. It’s blended into his skin and must have been there a while, but it makes him look fiercer, sexier, and I want to touch it, somehow soothe the jagged marks on his skin.
He has a small amount of dark hair on his chest, a real man, not some metro sexual who likes to get his nails done. No, Damian Walker is all male, with flexing muscles, dark olive skin, and a sexy as sin grin that had my panties melting right off my body. But he’s also my neighbor and needs to stay in the look-don’t-touch category.
“Hey.”
The deep masculine voice catches me off guard, and I look around for the owner until my eyes land on the abs I’d spent the night dreaming about. “Hi.”
Damian is standing on his balcony, and as luck would have it, our balconies are adjoined with a small iron railing separating them.
He’s sporting that grin, the one that lights up his dark eyes and has me grinning in return. Those dark eyes dart to my coffee mug, and suddenly, he’s tilting his head in confusion. “What’s on your mug?”
I’m perplexed for a moment until I realize the coffee cup I chose this morning