Perfect Match Enemies to lovers romance - Leia Stone Page 0,18

a fucking homeless, drunk Santa Claus. I didn’t know where he slept other nights. On the street? At a buddy’s? In a shelter? I didn’t know, and honestly I didn’t care. I had ninety-nine percent hatred for that man and only one percent love. The one percent was because Jenna would want me to.

Embarrassment burned my cheeks and I wished that Millie would leave quickly.

“Howdyyyy, ma’am. Yur new,” Wayne slurred, looking at Millie with a grin.

I bolted from the table and stood in front of Millie, glaring at my old man.

“Eat your dinner and be gone by morning. You know the rules,” I growled.

I didn’t want him talking to her, or worse, hitting on her. I’d had enough mortification for one night.

“Ashton!” Millie hissed from behind me and stepped out to greet him. “What’s the matter with you?” She looked at me like I was the problem, like Wayne was some sweet old homeless man. She had no idea.

I spun on her, stepping inches from her face, all of my anger back. “Everything. Everything is the matter with me. You’re cut. Go home.”

She recoiled as if I’d slapped her. I didn’t want her to see this, I couldn’t handle it. It was too much. Not tonight.

Chapter 7

Millie

The second I got up to my new “apartment,” I looked at the bare bed with no blanket or sheets and burst into tears.

What the fuck was I doing? Seeing Ashton be so rude about that homeless man made me think he was evil incarnate … but there was something else there. I could feel it. He’d softened for a split second when thanking me for helping him tonight, and I knew in that moment he might still be salvageable. And so was his bar.

With a groan, I put my hands on my head and sighed. I’d completely lost it. My therapist would probably commit me if I told her what I was doing, but I was too deep now to turn back. I was about to curl up into a ball and cry myself to sleep when my phone rang.

Julie.

Fuck, I’d forgotten all about her big night. Clearing my throat so that she wouldn’t know I had been crying, I answered.

“Hey!” I kept the pep in my voice.

“I’m engaged, bitch!” she shouted, and it brought a huge grin to my lips.

“What!” I faked a surprised voice in case she had me on speaker phone.

John’s strong voice came over the line. “Nice try, Millie. She told me that you told her.”

“Julie!”

“John!” she snapped.

We all burst into laughter and I felt my sadness slowly leaving. “I’m just happy for you guys. When is the wedding?”

“Six months! Think you will be back from your quarter life crisis by then?” Julie asked.

I rubbed my face. “Definitely. Much sooner than that.”

“Is he hot?” she queried out of left field.

“What?” I screeched. “This isn’t like that. I’m here to fix him so Colin’s heart didn’t go to a waste of space.”

“She didn’t say no,” John observed.

“He’s totally hot!” Julie shrieked. “Send me a picture.”

“Just imagine a tatted-up James Dean with the heart of Scrooge and it takes all his hotness points away.”

Silence.

“You know, Millie, not everyone can or wants to be fixed,” Julie said.

Wasn’t that the fucking truth. I hoped this wasn’t a lost cause.

I sighed. “I know. But there’s something more to him. Something … I need to find out. If I can’t break through in a week, I’m out of here.”

“Maybe you should just check in with your therapist and tell her what you’re doing,” she hedged.

I didn’t need Dr. Patel to tell me I was a raving lunatic. That was something I knew all on my own.

“Yeah, good idea,” I lied. “I’m beat. Gonna hit the sack. Happy for you guys. Love you both.”

“We love you too,” they said in unison, and I hung up.

I felt so alone, so lost. Reaching into my bag, I pulled out my old pink spiral notebook, the one my therapist had me start a journal in. The one I still wrote letters to Colin in. At first I’d written every day. I knew he couldn’t read them obviously, but it helped me heal. Now I only wrote them whenever I was feeling like there was something I really would have wanted to talk to him about. Grabbing the pen with a shaky hand, I started to write.

Dear Colin,

Where do I begin?

I think I’m losing my mind.

I’ve come all the way to Tennessee to say goodbye to you and instead I’ve