The Promise of Paradise - By Allie Boniface Page 0,59
out didn’t give him any excuse to ride around New Hampshire, screwing the first willing woman who came along. Pull yourself together, West. Other women have treated you worse than Ash did. Didn’t mean he had to crawl into a hole and wait for next year. Jesus, she’s just a woman. Thousands more in the damn sea, remember?
He stood, grabbed a towel, and wet it until it dripped. Then he slapped it across his cheeks and draped it around the back of his neck. He spat into the toilet and flushed. The way he figured it, he had two choices. One, he could head back to Paradise, ignore her for the rest of the summer, and by the time autumn rolled around, be back to his usual self. Or two, he could go back to Lycian Street, march upstairs, and tell her exactly what he thought of the lies she’d told.
Eddie ground his teeth together. He didn’t really like either option, because both required him to turn his back on the first woman who’d made him feel alive in years. Still, what choice did he have? He jammed the heel of one hand against his forehead and tried to ignore the heave working its way up his throat. Gonna be sick, he thought, a second before last night’s burgers and tequila caught up with him. Bending over the toilet just in time, he hugged the cold porcelain with both arms as he sank to his knees and lost everything inside him.
* * *
“Eddie?” It was Cass’s voice. He wasn’t sure how much time had passed. Only a few minutes, probably. Struggling to a stand, he flushed the toilet and rubbed a hand over his face.
“Yeah.” He pushed his way back into the dingy bedroom. Cass waited by the bed, sipping a steaming cup of coffee. Another sat on the dresser.
She cocked her head, hair streaming over one shoulder. “Gonna be all right?”
He shrugged, reached for his clothes and pulled them on. “Thanks for the joe.” He took a long gulp, letting it burn his lips. Black. Good.
“You're welcome.” She ran a finger down the side of his face. “You look like hell.”
“Tell me something I don’t know.”
She smiled and sank to a seat in one of the chairs near the window. “Okay.” She paused. “We didn’t sleep together last night.”
Eddie jerked a little at her words. “You’re…well, I…”
She laughed outright then. “Oh, please. I know you’ve been wondering since the minute you woke up. I know you, Eddie. I know that guilty look that makes your eyes all squinty.”
He felt himself redden and stared down at the coffee, as if it might hold the answers within its darkness. “Listen, I’m sorry,” he said after a minute. “I didn’t mean to drag you all the way over here just to listen to my problems.”
She flipped a hand into the air. “I didn’t do much listening. After you fell asleep halfway in the door, it was all I could do to get you undressed…” Her eyelashes fluttered toward her lap, coquettish. “Thought I might get a little action after all.”
A smile tugged at his face.
Cass shrugged. “But you kept talking about Ashton this, and Ashton that.” She looked back up at him. “I thought her name was Ashley.”
So did I.
Eddie found his wallet, tossed in the open drawer of the nightstand, and stuffed it into his back pocket. “I gotta get back home. Things to take care of. You ready?”
She shook her head. “I have a couple friends in town. Called ‘em this morning.” She spun the watch on her thin wrist. “We’re meeting over at the diner in twenty minutes. I figured you could use some time to yourself.”
He nodded, relieved. The ride back to Paradise, the sorting out he needed to do, was better suited for solitude. He bent down and planted a kiss on his ex-girlfriend’s cheek. “You’re okay,” he mumbled. “Thanks.”
Cass leaned back in the chair, letting her glance slide down his torso. “No problem. Make sure she knows what she’s missing.”
Eddie smiled for real this time and dropped a hand onto her shoulder. Then he picked up the motorcycle helmets and headed out into the sun.
* * *
He took the long way back to Paradise. Avoiding the main road, he chose the back ones instead, the narrow ones that wound their way through woods and past lakes and by the occasional house or gas station. He drove slowly at first, savoring the feel of the handlebars and