Any Day Now - Lani Lynn Vale Page 0,27

decipher.

“Yes?” she asked somewhat breathlessly.

Excitement. She liked that I’d asked her out.

“My dog?” I said. “I’m kind of attached to her.”

Amelia laughed then, the sound going straight to my dick.

“Oh,” she sighed. “Sorry.”

She walked back over to me, and when she passed me the dog, her hand brushed my cock in the handoff.

I would’ve physically jolted and growled had her dad not been watching the entire exchange.

Then, like the shameful person that I was, I used my dog to shield my dick as I walked away and didn’t once look back.

The moment I entered my parents’ house, my mother was waiting.

“So… how did she get your shirt?” Mom asked.

I licked my lips, opened my mouth to tell her a complete lie, but ended up telling her the whole truth instead. Starting when I met her at the photoshoot and ending with my night with her.

Mom didn’t say a word until I was finished.

“I’m not completely surprised,” she said. “You used to be extra aware of her. Always wondering why she was there. Keeping an eye on her. You even asked about her a lot when you noticed she wasn’t coming around anymore. It makes sense.” She paused. “But… Adam, I didn’t raise a stupid man. You need to be careful with that one. Not because you’ll break her heart, or she’ll break yours, but because she’s the marrying type. The keeping type.”

“The loving type,” my dad finished, having arrived at some point.

I flashed a look over my shoulder in surprise. “You think so?”

He looked at my mother then. “I know so.”

Chapter 9

Sometimes you win some, sometimes you fuck things up so bad that you want to die.

-Adam after eating Taco Bell

Adam

I’d successfully made it through three days of not seeing, talking, or even thinking about Amelia.

Though, that was mainly because the moment that I’d left my mother’s house, I’d gone and done something stupid like grabbing Taco Bell partway through my shift.

Then, even more stupid of me, I’d not noticed the warning signs of my stomach fucking hating me until all the goddamn doctors’ offices were closed.

Thankfully, I knew a paramedic, and she was able to hook me up with the good drugs that calmed my belly down long enough for me to finish my shift.

What didn’t help is the next damn day my parents went out of town, and I’d woken up with the worst stomach ache known to man, and weakness so bad that I’d only been capable of calling in to work and nothing else.

The next two days were the most miserable of my life.

I couldn’t eat. Barely could drink. Didn’t have the energy to do much of anything but lie there and pretend I wasn’t going to expire.

It was day four, now.

I’d just finished up my half a shift that I’d worked to ease back in, and now I was standing outside a titty bar.

I gave the man standing guard outside my cover charge and walked through the doors, amazed as hell again at the beauty of my surroundings.

The place looked straight out of the set of Aladdin. All draperies, comfy oversized pillows on the sofas. Tables and bars that were so ornate that it didn’t fit at all into the Texas scene.

Then there was the woman behind the bar.

The place was slow.

I imagined that was normal for so early in the night.

She looked upset, though, and I couldn’t help but frown at her as I walked her way.

She didn’t notice me at first, and I realized why when I sidled up to the open bar stool at the end of the bar nearest the wall.

“I just love when I can smell a guy’s colon in the air after he leaves,” the girl at the opposite side of the bar said, sounding breathless and flustered.

Amelia’s eyes turned from the glass that she was polishing to me. They were sparkling with mirth.

That sparkle dimmed a bit at the sight of me.

I instantly felt my tummy remind me of what I’d gone through the last few days and wondered why the thought of her hadn’t crossed my mind.

It should have.

Once I was once again thinking coherently, I’d started to search for her number, and quickly realized that I didn’t have it. And without notifying the people that were protective of her, I wouldn’t be getting it without finding her myself.

“I think you mean cologne?” Amelia suggested, her eyes flicking to me and away again.

“No, his colon. I think he was wearing that stuff that you can get at