No Commitment (Capital Kingsmen #1) - Lisa Suzanne Page 0,18
without the complications of sex, particularly because the animal attraction between us was so goddamn strong that our in-person conversations kept leading us straight to the bedroom.
Or her desk.
Or the alley behind the bar.
My phone buzzes with a text over on the nightstand. My feet are propped up on the windowsill, and I can’t really think of a single person I’m interested in hearing from right now, so I don’t bother getting up to check it.
Except her...but she blocked me two years ago and, in the meantime, managed to find a guy, date him, and marry him.
I take a drag straight from the bottle. It’s not numbing me the way I’d hoped, and I think it has something to do with the exhaustion that’s been muddying my brain. The physical fatigue of jetlag is meeting with the mental debilitation of learning she’s married and my fight with Tommy and all the other shit going on with the band.
I need something stronger than scotch. I don’t know where to get something harder than alcohol in Milwaukee, but I have enough contacts around that I could procure it.
Except I don’t even have the energy for that.
So I take another drag from the bottle, and another. And then, finally, I close my eyes and pass out.
I sleep in the chair for a few hours before I wake up with a stiff neck and haul myself over to the bed. I sleep there a lot more hours.
When I finally wake up, it’s nearly noon and my mouth is drier than the desert. I slept almost fifteen hours, and I don’t actually feel any better at all.
I drink the two bottles of water the mini-fridge in this room offers. I take a shower. My flight isn’t for a few more hours, but I grab my phone to check my flight status.
And that’s when I see it.
My eyes widen. My heart races. My chest tightens.
It’s a text.
From her.
The entire short message is splashed across my home screen.
Dani: What are you doing in Milwaukee?
She sent it last night as I was numbing myself with scotch. I didn’t bother to check it because I never thought it would be from her.
I don’t know what to say. I open the message and stare at the screen as I try to figure out how the fuck I’m supposed to reply after all this time has passed.
Anxiety plagues me when I click the send button that it’s going to be rejected because she blocked me again.
Me: I came to see you.
Her reply comes faster than mine did.
I’m not blocked. But she’s married now. All she did was unblock and ask a question, yet inside I feel like she just opened the gate back up to let me into her life.
Dani: Why?
After all this time, I guess there’s no sense in beating around the bush, is there?
Me: Because I’m so fucking in love with you and I never got a chance to tell you that.
I stare at the screen as I wait for the reply, but after a full minute, nothing comes through.
I click through to check my flight.
It’s on time, and I still have a few hours before I need to get to the airport...but I don’t know if I can get on my flight now that she fucking texted me after the two longest years of my life.
I take a shower, and there’s still no reply when I get out. I pack my bag. I toss out the half-empty bottle of scotch, fifty bucks right down the drain. And then, because I’m running out of time and I have nothing left to lose, I text her again.
Me: Can I see you?
Dani: I don’t think that’s a good idea.
Me: Why not?
Dani: Because I had to move on with my life after you hurt me.
A pain stabs me right in the heart. I had no intention of hurting her.
Me: Then can we talk? I have some things I need to say to you.
And I hate texting. I want to hear her voice. I want her to hear the sincerity in mine.
Dani: I don’t think so. You can’t come back after all this time and expect it all to just be the same.
Me: I don’t expect it to be the same. But I need to apologize to you, and I’d rather say it to you than text it to you.
I don’t get a reply. I think about fishing that half bottle out of the trash, but then something happens.