Shattered Rose (Winsor Series) - By T L Gray Page 0,117

arms. He began kissing my neck, and I suddenly felt an overwhelming need to flee. I rushed to my bedroom, locking the door behind me.

I heard Jake as he put his head to the door. “Avery, I’m sorry. Don’t run away from me. It’s just the alcohol talking, I promise.”

I laid on my bed, still sobbing as I felt my heart breaking. Once again, it was my fault. I let it get to this point, and once again I had become a person I had no respect for. I shuddered as I thought of the quad that fateful day, and how familiar that feeling was becoming again. However this time, I feared, there would be no Parker to pull me out of it.

With the morning sun, came some clarity and the feeling that I may have over reacted the night before. I had let a comment from someone I didn’t even know that well make me feel cheap and guilty, and now I was starting to wonder why.

Jake was gone when I went for my morning run, but I wasn’t surprised as I had heard him calling around for a ride last night. I ran by his car in the parking lot and shook my head. I was going to have to decide what I wanted and soon before I lost both of them, or worse, lost myself once again.

I felt my phone start to vibrate to signify an incoming text. It was from Jake.

“Please don’t be mad at me,” he wrote and added and sad face at the end.

I chuckled to myself and slowed to a walk so I could text him back. “I’m not. May have overreacted a bit.”

“Good! Want to do dinner tonight?”

“Can’t. Have plans with Parker.”

He sent another sad face and then “Ok, I’ll call you Monday…I’m sorry.”

“Me too,” I texted back and put up my phone, returning back to my run pace. While I felt better about Jake, my stomach turned a little as I thought of Parker’s homecoming tonight. Something in my gut told me things were never going to be the same.

I paced the living room as I waited for Parker’s call. It was getting close to eight, and I still hadn’t heard from him. Finally, the phone rang and I grabbed it after one ring.

“Hey! Are you home?” I asked a little too enthusiastically.

“No babe, I so wish that was true. We just finished training and still have to go clean all our weapons before leaving. I don’t think I’m going to be back for at least three more hours.”

I felt my heart sink, but didn’t want him to feel worse than he already did. “That’s ok,” I assured him. “You sound tired.”

“Completely wiped out,” he admitted. “We’ve been up since four in the morning with this exercise, and I can barely keep my eyes open. It’s going to take a lot of coffee to get me home tonight.”

“Parker?”

“Yeah?”

“What’s an exercise?”

He laughed on the other end, but it felt empty as his exhaustion was apparent through the phone. “It’s when we play like we’re at war.”

“Oh…Hey are you sure it’s safe for you to drive tonight? You sound like you might fall over right now,” I asked feeling concerned for the first time that it really might be dangerous for him to drive home.

“I admit, I’ve thought about staying. Most of the guys here are,” he acknowledged, sighing. “But I want to see you so bad, it seems worth it.”

“Don’t come back just for me! That’s crazy, and I’ll die of worry. Go get some sleep, and I’ll see you after class on Monday. We can spend the whole night together.”

“I feel like such a bad boyfriend.”

“Don’t say another word. I’ll be fine. I’m going to find a good chic flick and do my nails. You just take care of yourself for once.”

“Ok Avery, I think I may just do that. You’re the best, you know that?”

I shook my head and felt my eyes tear up. I was absolutely not the best, not even close. “Go get some sleep.”

We said our goodbyes and hung up the phone. I looked down at the outfit I had agonized over all day and started to pull it off. If I was going to watch a movie, it was going to be in my pajamas.

I finished getting comfortable and then went to put in the movie when I realized that it was still in my car. Throwing on some flip flops, I walked out the door,