Rocking Kin (Lucy & Harris, #3) - Terri Anne Browning Page 0,36
would have been selfish and proved to him that I was too immature to take our relationship seriously.
I’d just wanted to mean a little more to him than anything else, and have him there to hold my hand when I buried my mother.
Now, I had to sit beside him on a leather couch like none of that had happened.
Yeah. Sure. I could do that.
Not.
Jace shifted and turned so his back was in the corner of the couch and he was half turned toward me. His left hand went along the back of the couch and I felt one of his fingers stroke over my hair. “I haven’t seen you in here much lately.”
“I had better things to do,” I lied and pulled my phone out of one of the side pockets of my cop utility belt. I brought up my messages, saw that I had missed a few from both Angie and Caleb and turned my full attention to returning them.
I was missing the twins like crazy. Talking to them and Carter every day was bittersweet. I needed to hear their voices, to share what was going on in their day-to-day lives, but it hurt every time I got off the phone with them. My entire body ached from the pain when I had to end a call. The goodbyes felt just as raw now as they had when I’d left them waving at me outside the airport as I’d gotten on the plane that had taken me three thousand miles away from them.
“I’ll have a ginger ale, please.”
My head shot up at Lucy’s voice and I realized a waitress was standing beside Harris. “Beer,” he told the girl.
“Right, boss, I’ll get it for you.” Her gaze went past me and straight to Jace. The look on her face told me that she had most likely been a hookup at some point.
Was she a regular?
Ugh. Stop it, Kin. You don’t care.
You aren’t supposed to care.
I fucking cared.
“Same, Wendy,” he told her without giving her a second glance.
Disappointment shadowed her eyes as she turned them on me, and then they grew cooler. “And you?”
I nearly rolled my eyes. Really? She was jealous of me? I wanted to laugh but just smirked instead. I figured smirking was safer than jumping up and scratching up her pretty face. Right? “I can get my own drink when I get thirsty, thanks.”
Lucy turned her head to me as the waitress walked away. “I thought you were thirsty?”
I shrugged. “From the frostbite I nearly got from Jace’s castoff, I’m pretty sure she would’ve spit in it. I’ll just take a drink of yours.”
Brown eyes widened. “If she did that, Harris would fire her on the spot.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m good for now.” I gave her a sassy wink that had her grin returning and I turned my attention back to my phone.
Jace shifted beside me, his fingers wrapping around a few strands of my hair that were on the back of the couch. “She isn’t a castoff,” he muttered.
I shrugged but didn’t look up from my phone, pretending like I didn’t care. “Sure she isn’t.”
“Kin, I swear on Kassa’s life, I don’t hook up with chicks that work at the club.”
I lifted my eyes then. Kassa was the most important person in Jace’s life. He would kill for her, so I knew that he wouldn’t swear on her life for a lie. “Okay,” I told him. “But she wants to be a castoff. Maybe you should take her up on the offer.”
“Maybe you should start returning my calls and texts,” he shot back, leaning closer. “I just want to talk, Kin.”
“I don’t think we have anything to talk about,” I assured him. “It’s all in the past now, anyway. I’ve moved on from it.” Lie. Such a huge lie. “I’m pretty sure you’ve already moved on, too. You just don’t want to admit it to yourself.”
His strong jaw clenched. “I don’t want to move on. I want you.”
My heart stuttered in my chest, but I forced my face to remain impassive. “You had me, Jace. Our story is already over, minus the happy-ever-after. I’m okay with that. Since you were the one who walked away without a backward glance, you should be okay with it too.”
The fingers he’d tangled in my hair tightened, tugging my head back ever so slightly so I was forced to meet his gaze head on. “I’ve looked back a million times, baby. Each and every day I’ve thought about you,