Page 9 of Blurred Red Lines

Straightening the knot in my tie, I hit the button again. “I’ll be right there.”

With both palms flat against my desk, I stood over it, sweat beading on my forehead. One verdict. One man’s life hung in the balance, and once his fate was sealed, I could end this miserable week and not think about mine.

Chapter Four

EDEN

Staringat the bare white walls of my bedroom, I held onto my pillow as the same thought ran in my head for over an hour. No one got ahead in life by bucking the system. I never bought into that crap, although Dad drilled it into my head my whole childhood.

I suppose my vehement dislike for rules played a role in the clusterfuck I awoke to as my steady friend-with-benefits faced the opposite direction in my bed. Forcing myself to remain quiet, I squinted the eye not squished into my pillow to verify I wasn’t dreaming or, even worse, still drunk.

Nope—sober as a judge.

After meeting me at work as he promised, the lump of man snored softly as if he had every right to occupy my sheets in the daylight. His dirty blond hair twisted haphazardly behind his head, which I assumed was from a repeated invasion of my impatient fingers.

Hell if I remember.

It must’ve been good though, because his back looked like an exotic trash panda nailed him. One corner of my mouth lifted in amusement but quickly faded as my hands dove for the alarm clock.

9:00 A.M.

“Shit!” I gathered as many discarded pieces of clothing as I could find and pulled them on, not caring if my shirt was backward or my shorts were buttoned incorrectly. They wouldn’t be on long anyway.

The lump on my bed grunted as a ball of his clothes hit him in the face with laser accuracy. “Babe,” he mumbled, shaking his jeans off his cheek and burying his head into the pillow. “Why’re you up so damn early on a Saturday? Go back to sleep.”

This shit wouldn’t do. He knew the rules.

This time his cell phone bounced off his forehead. “Jesus!” He shot straight up, rubbing the red mark it left behind.

I shrugged and disappeared into the adjoining bathroom, turning on the shower full blast. When I reentered my room, he sat up glaring at me, but he’d at least put on his pants.

Good boy.

“Now that I’ve got your attention,” I said, collecting his shoes and depositing them on the foot of the bed, “I’m going to shower, and you can get the hell out.”

He stared at me with a blank look. “You’re kicking me out?”

“Nothing gets by you, does it?”

I was being a bitch, maybe more so than necessary. But I had no illusions about what had happened last night or in the past few months. I wasn’t an idealistic teenage dreamer who held onto some fantasy of love and happily ever after. I’d lived life enough to know happily ever after existed only in fairy tales and cheesy rom-com movies.

Once you’ve danced close enough to the fire to get licked by the flames, you learned to adapt to the darkness.

He grasped my arm in a firm hold, smirking as if he didn’t believe me. “C’mon, let’s hit round two. I’ll even get you there first.”

What hegotwere his car keys flung right between his eyes.

“Fuck!” His head snapped back against the headboard with a thud. “You’re crazy, you know that?”

For the first time since waking, a conflicted smile broke across my cheeks, and a twinge of regret pulled at my stomach. Turning away, I paused at the bathroom door and glanced over my shoulder. “I know,” I said, the corners of my mouth gravitating downward.

“What’s wrong with you, Eden?”

My mind drifted as I closed the bathroom door. “Everything.”

* * *

“I’m sorry. It’ll never happen again—yadda-yadda—you know the drill.” I tore through the back door, throwing the dusty brown apron over my head in the middle of my usual apology.