The Happy Ever After Playlist - Abby Jimenez Page 0,69

I want to be the rational one, Kristen. I didn’t even like losing Brandon to the fire station for two days in a row. Staying with a man who’s going to be gone for a year will make me miserable—even if I am half in love with him. I’m in an in-between, and if I keep making decisions that bury me there, I’ll never get out of it.”

She made a whistle noise. “Wow. You really are on a self-improvement kick.” The baby giggled in the background. “Look, I’m glad you’re getting your shit together, Sloan. I really am. And if you think you need to end it when he leaves, do what you gotta do. But give the man a fucking drawer in the meantime. If you’re giving him your vagina you can give him a drawer.”

I snorted. “God. I’m a mess.”

“Yeah, but you’re the fun busted-pi?ata kind. That’s why this guy’s all over you. Look, I gotta go. Oliver’s being a handful. I just got fire-hosed. Call me later.”

When I heard the shower turn off, I knocked on the bathroom door to the sound of Jason’s electric razor. He called me in and I leaned back on the sink next to him, my beltless silk robe falling open. He gave the slit an appreciative glance.

He wasn’t mad at me.

The room was steamy and smelled like his cologne. He had a towel around his waist and he stood over the sink, trimming his beard.

Something about the casual routine stirred feelings in me. It felt so right to have him here. His presence didn’t even feel new. It felt familiar and normal and it gave me a preemptive sadness that I suspected would grow with every day that brought us closer to his departure date.

In a few weeks, he would be gone. The bathroom would be empty. Tucker would go with him. Jason wouldn’t come over anymore. And the clothes in the drawer he wanted would disappear.

Empty, again.

“Don’t worry.” He winked at me. “I’ll clean the sink. You won’t even know I was here.”

The irony.

I gave him a weak smile. God, I was a nutjob. In the last week I’d shown Jason enough crazy to scare off anyone. He’d seen me blackout drunk and washed barf out of my hair. He’d sat with me, surrounded by piles of my dead fiancé’s clothing, and watched TV. He’d held me while I had a panic attack and even offered to sell his motorcycle so it wouldn’t upset me. I was knee-jerk emotional responses, a minefield of bad days and walls to tear down, and they popped up at random, without warning.

And he didn’t care.

For some reason this gorgeous man who looked like he could be in a damn electric razor commercial was all in—even if we were about to be all out—and I wouldn’t even give him a fucking drawer.

I leaned there, watching him run the razor down his neck, and he glanced at me with those blue eyes and I missed him already.

“You’re a very patient man, aren’t you?”

He slid his eyes down my body and raised an eyebrow. “Well, it’s paid off so far.”

The breath that I blew through my lips was one of resolve. So it wouldn’t last. Okay. But I’d give it everything until it ended.

I held up a key.

Jason froze and his razor clicked off.

I pressed the key to his bare chest, over his heart. “Use whatever drawer you want,” I said. “Park your truck in the garage. No more ringing the doorbell when you come home. Okay?”

The smile on his face made my heart hurt. I don’t know that I’d ever seen him look this happy.

“Okay,” he whispered, putting his palm over the hand on his chest.

We’d have it all…right up until we wouldn’t.

Chapter 26

Jason

? Broken | Lund

I typed in my text and heard the ping from across the store.

Jason: You’re so fucked. One word: pleather.

Sloan: How do you feel about taxidermy?

Jason: How do you feel about the 70s?

A Talking Heads song played in the background, and I looked over the racks of the musty Santa Monica thrift store. Sloan glanced up at me from across the room and narrowed her eyes. I beamed back at her.

She’d had Zane drop me off at Goodwill so she could challenge me to a game on our date night. We each got fifteen dollars to buy something the other person had to wear for the rest of the evening. It was actually a pretty hilarious idea. But when I heard