Page 26 of Beneath Your Beautiful

“Just…an abstract painting. I paint a lot after work. I can’t sleep when I get home.”

“Neither can I.”

“So, what do you do?” I asked, taking a sip of my coffee.

“Last night I watched a movie. Listened to music. Cleaned the kitchen. And fixed a broken cabinet.”

“You were busy.”

“Sometimes I do all those things at the same time. Just to keep it interesting.”

I thought about what he said and laughed. “Wow, you have skills.”

“Oh yeah, I have skills.” He made that sound dirty. I was imagining what kind of skills he had that were in no way related to watching TV, listening to music, cleaning, or DIY. His mouth, hands, and body…they were all very much involved.

“I was talking about…you know, multi-tasking.”

His lips twitched with amusement. “So was I.”

My face heated, and the heat traveled south. I guzzled my iced drink to cool off. Stop thinking about Killian naked, running his warm, calloused hands over your body and…yeah, cool it. That would be a disaster. I worked with him and, more importantly, I was working on myself. Last night, in a moment of weakness, I stalked Facebook. I stopped posting months ago, but I hadn’t shut down my account, so I still had access to all my old ‘friends.’ Luke hadn’t posted anything in months, but Lexie more than made up for it.

After tripping down memory lane and poring over pictures of me and Luke at the prom, at Homecoming, at Penn State football games and tailgate parties, and a million photos where we looked like the happiest couple on the planet, I tortured myself with the present-day photos. Lexie at different stages of her pregnancy. Luke, the proud father-to-be, with his hand on her pregnant stomach. “He never misses a doctor’s appointment. World’s Best Daddy,” she wrote. Lexie and Luke with his parents. By the pool. Family dinners. The baby shower—Cassidy and Lexie with their arms around each other. Traitor.

But I considered it a small victory that I didn’t end up in a puddle of tears. When I shut my laptop, I concluded that I didn’t envy their life. My greatest fear was getting trapped in my hometown for the rest of my life. Unfortunately, that didn’t make the betrayal easier to accept.

Killian was watching my face. “So many loud thoughts. I can barely hear myself think.”

I sighed, and it was also loud.

“That bad?” he asked, sounding like he genuinely cared.

“Yeah. I did a stupid thing last night.”

“What did you do?”

“I stalked my ex-boyfriend.” I wasn’t sure why I was spilling my guts to Killian all over the coffee shop, but he didn’t seem fazed by it.

“Literally?”

“Virtually.”

He took a sip of his coffee. “Was he your Prince Charming?”

“Once upon a time. But someone else got the happily ever after.”

“He’s an idiot.”

I laughed a little, but I didn’t want to talk about Luke with Killian. I wanted to talk about Killian. “What does your tattoo say?”

He looked at his arm, as if he needed confirmation. “Non Desistas Non Exeiris. Never give up, never surrender.”

I thought about it for a few seconds. It sounded familiar and then I remembered why. “You inked your skin with a line fromGalaxy Quest?”

He shook his head. “Yeah.”

“That’s awesome. My brothers would love that. They were so into that movie. We watched it so many times, we knew all the lines.”

“Connor used to love it.” He looked at me like he was seeing me for the first time. “But nobody ever guesses it’s a movie reference.”