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The words, like her taste, had been at the tip of my tongue. I’d caught myself, not willing to give her any reason to run.

I was right; she didn’t trust us. She’d been pulling away, returning the car and sharing even less the more time we spent together.

The fact she hadn’t been with anyone else meant it wasn’t just me she was keeping back. It also meant I’d be the first one getting in. Into her head, her soul,her.

My cock hardened, pushing against my jeans painfully. Inhaling, I looked around in a half-ass attempt to not think about how easily it’d be to roll her onto her back and slide into perfection.

I’d guessed her apartment was small, but I hadn’t realized it was as tiny as it was. There were three doors, including the front one. Since her bed was in the middle of the living room, I was guessing one of them wasn’t leading to a massive bedroom.

She worked two jobs, both of them long hours, and her whole place was smaller than my office. It didn’t sit right with me for multiple reasons. I was selfish. I wanted more time with her, and that wasn’t going to happen if we were working around our schedules. Seeing where she lived, I knew she wasn’t going to just leave her job on her own. She needed the money.

The other problem, the one that ate at me, was she washappy. She worked so hard to struggle, but she seemed happy with her life. It made me wonder what she’d already been through that made working eighteen hours a day to live in a shoebox seem like the good life.

Quickly, I pulled my phone from my pocket and set an alarm for an hour. I rolled Dahlia onto her side and curved my body around her small one.

She made a small noise in her sleep before pushing back into me and sighing.

Smiling, I closed my eyes and shut out everything else.

Chapter Eight

Cheesehead Mothership

Dahlia

Things needed to change.

More than a week had passed since I’d seen Theo for any real amount of time. And even though he was the one who owned his own company, it’d been my work schedule that’d mostly gotten in the way.

After he’d spent the night, I’d woken to an empty bed with a note from him. Since he said he’d left at five, I was glad he hadn’t woken me to say bye. I’d worked my Weggies shift, but used my break to return his text making brunch plans for the following morning. I’d had to break them, but set plans for dinner the next day.

I’d had to cancel them, too, plus a few more. Other people not showing up, jerk Bill’s order form mistake, and jerk Bill being an even bigger jerk because he’d messed up, suddenly became my problem.

I wanted to quit.

And, as I stood and listened to Bill lecturing me about artichokes facing the same direction, my mature resignation was on the tip of my tongue.

Just say it. Say, ‘Cazzo you, I quit.’

I don’t think that’s the correct use of the word, but he doesn’t know Italian.

“Are you listening?” Bill asked, his face redder than usual.

Unfortunately, my rent and responsibilities wouldn’t care that I had to quit because he was awful, so I forced a smile. “Of course. I’ll put them all stem forward.”

He nodded, his chest puffed out as he strutted away. I could almost see the power circling his head.

Checking the time on my phone, I saw it was already the end of my shift. I opened a waiting message from Theo.

Theo:Call when you’re out.

Looking around, I hurriedly typed out a reply.

Me:It won’t be for a while. Artichoke emergency. Lives could’ve been lost. Thank goodness the jerk is making me stay late to fix it.

I began unloading all the artichokes I’d just finished stocking for the morning. I was willing to bet Bill had watched and waited until I was almost done before saying anything.

My phone vibrated in my pocket but Bill was lurking around, monitoring my extremely difficult task.