Page 22 of Fall With Me (Wait For You #5)

She leaned forward, waving the link around like a wand.

“Look, I totally get why you haven’t said anything.

It’s like telling one little lie and then telling another little lie to cover that one and so on.

Then it all builds up. I get that. A lot of time has passed and how would you explain what really happened?

Hey Reece, would you like to play with my tits? Oh, by the way, we never had sex.”

Calla almost choked again. “That ... that sounds like an awkward conversation.”

I sighed as I pushed my plate away from me. “I do feel terrible. I wish I’d pulled my head out of my ass long enough to give him a chance to explain why he reacted that way, and I wish I’d just told him the truth.”

“He ain’t completely innocent in all of this,” Katie argued. “Remember, he was so drunk he thought he had sex. I’ve drunk a lot in my day. A lot. Like so much, I’m pretty sure I’ve turned into a brewery, but I’ve never been so drunk that I didn’t know if I had sex.”

Calla nodded as she poked at her scrambled eggs. “True.”

Neither had I ever drunk that much, but that was beside the point. Taking a sip of my soda, my shoulders sank as the weight of the situation settled on them. I straightened my glasses as I sighed. “I ... I really like him, guys. I really do.”

“Duh.” Katie rolled her eyes. “You’re in love with him.”

I ignored that comment, because love ... love was a scary four-letter word. “He’s a good guy, a really good guy. And you remember the last dude I kind of seriously dated?” I asked Katie.

She wrinkled her nose. “Before Dean the ginger?”

“Oh my God,” Calla murmured, stifling her giggle with the back of her hand.

I shook my head and then took a drink. “Yes. Remember Donnie, the—”

“The really nice guy who took you to the Eagles game and you totally got with in the parking garage, but turned out to be married?” Katie supplied happily.

My lips pressed together. “No. That was Ryan the fucker and thanks for reminding me about him. He also had a kid he never told me about. I was talking about Donnie the starving artist who stole my jewelry my grammy left me. ”

Calla blinked several times. “Wow. A married guy and a thief?”

“I normally don’t attract the greatest people.

” I shrugged, but I thought of Henry, and that made my skin crawl.

The thing was, I knew I dated guys like that for a reason.

They were safe. “But Reece is not like them, and a part of me ...” I let out a slow breath.

“I have spent years lusting after him.” And I’d probably spent years feeling something stronger than that.

Sitting there, I shook my head. What was I even doing? I just needed to tell him the truth. Let this thing between us die before I got burned big time, but I couldn’t ... I couldn’t not try with him. Not after all these years of wanting him.

God, I sounded like I had a split personality. Go after him. Don’t go after him. Tell him the truth. Don’t say anything. I was giving myself whiplash.

“You need to tell him the truth,” Calla advised. “As soon as possible. But I wouldn’t worry about it too much.”

I arched my brows at her.

“Seriously,” she insisted. “It’s not like you lied about something major.”

“I think not telling him we didn’t have sex is pretty major.”

“Not really.” Calla smiled at me. “Trust me, there are worse lies out there. It’s not like you lied about being with someone else while with him or anything like that. He’ll understand. Right, Katie?”

She watched me, pouty lips turned down at the corners.

Calla elbowed her as she frowned. “ Right , Katie?”

Frost coated my insides as Katie’s eyes clouded over. “I don’t know, Roxy. Tell the truth before he gets in those pants of yours for real. If you don’t, I think you’ve gone too far.”

Agreeing, I nodded slowly. The same dread I experienced the first time I realized I needed to tell Reece what really happened returned.

Calla cleared her throat. “It’ll be okay.”

“She’s right,” Katie agreed, stabbing her last link with her fork. “Besides, you broke Henry Williams’s window and he still gave you an orgasm. You’ll probably get an even better one out of this.”

Smacking my palm off my forehead, I groaned. “Oh God. Who doesn’t know about that?”

“No one, honey.” Katie bit off half the link. “Absolutely no one.”

Calla and I watched Katie speed out of the parking lot in her Mini Cooper, almost clipping a minivan that had a Baby On Board bumper sticker, but when the van parked, an elderly couple climbed out.

“You’re really not going to hold a séance, are you?” Calla asked.

I laughed loudly. I’d told them about the strange things happening in my apartment.

Luckily neither of them thought I was crazy or that I was weird for thinking that my place may be haunted.

Of course, Katie had lots of ideas of how to address the strange happenings, and one of them was by calling someone in town who supposedly communed with spirits and could host a séance.

“Ah, you know, I don’t think that will be a great idea,” I said, grinning. “If there really is a ghostie roaming around, it hasn’t tried to scare me. In a way, it’s been strangely helpful. ”

Calla snorted. “I bet more people would like to have a ghost like that.”

“And the whole idea of séance or allowing a psychic in the house just—I don’t know, if that’s what it really is, I don’t want to know what’s there. As long as I don’t wake up in the middle of the night and find it staring at me, then I’m cool with it.”

“Oh my God.” She shuddered. “That’s so creepy.” There was a pause. “But what if it isn’t a ghost?”

“What else could it be? Seriously, though? Unless I have people living under my stairs like in that creepy eighties movie, it’s either a ghost or I’m losing my mind.”

“You’re not crazy.” She squinted. “But maybe you should have Reece just take a look at your place. Or Jax?”

Yeah, I could picture both of guys never letting me live it down if I told them I thought I had a ghost in my house.

“So how long are you going to be up here?” I asked, changing the subject as I leaned against my car, pulled off my glasses, and used the hem of my shirt to clean them.

“My morning class is cancelled tomorrow so I’m going to head back then.” Calla glanced up at the overcast skies. The scent of rain was thick in the air. “Which is probably a good thing, since I think they’re calling for pretty bad storms today.”

I slipped my glasses on, smiling when I didn’t see any smudges or spots. “You and Jax got anything planned for today?”

“I think we’re just going to hang out at his place.” She twisted a length of blond hair between her hands as she shrugged. “What about you and Reece? ”

“I don’t think we have anything planned. It’s weird. I don’t know if we’re dating or if we’re just ... hooking up. He texted me last night, asking me to let him know when I got home and I did that.” I folded my arms, pursing my lips. “So I really don’t know.”

“You just text him, invite him over if he doesn’t work or something. Keep it casual,” she offered, and then laughed softly. “Honestly, I’m the last person who should be giving you advice when it comes to this.”

“No.” I reached out and squeezed her arm. “You obviously know what you’re doing. You hooked a guy like Jax, so ... ?”

Her cheeks flushed and she laughed again as she propped her hip against the passenger back door. “You know damn well I had no idea what I was doing when it came to him.”

I grinned. Calla had been pretty clueless. “True.”

“But you know, I think it’s always like that when you really like someone. It was the same with Teresa and Jase. Liking someone makes us stupid. That’s what I’m going with.”

“Sounds accurate.”

“Oh!” she exclaimed. “I forgot to ask you last night. Who got you the roses? They are beautiful.”

Feeling creeped out by the roses since I assumed they were from Dean, I’d left them in the office. Now that room smelled like a florist shop. Ha. “You know, I have no idea, if they’re not from Dean.”

She arched a brow. “You really think they’re from him?”

I shrugged. “I guess so.”

“What did it say?”

“Something like next time will be better,” I told her, frowning. “Weird, huh? ”

She nodded as she pushed off the car. “Maybe the flowers were meant for someone else if they weren’t from Dean.”

“I don’t know. They had my name on it. Maybe it was just a mistake.”

Calla smiled and she reached down and gave me a hug. “I’ve got to run, but I’ll call you later, okay?”

I waved good-bye and then climbed into my car.

On the way home, I was surprised when Dennis called.

Since it was Sunday, I wasn’t expecting to hear from him, but cops didn’t work normal Monday-through-Friday schedules.

He let me know that Henry had gotten an estimate for the windshield damages and it was going to cost a couple of hundred to fix.

I groaned, thinking of how much I had in my savings account, which wasn’t a lot at all. But this was my bed I made, so I had to roll around in it and pick up more web design to make back the cash.

When I got home, I was halfway across the sidewalk when the sky ripped open and rain pelted me, soaking me in seconds. Squeaking, I dashed up to the porch. My wet sandals hit the floorboards, and I slipped. Arms wheeling like a windmill, my purse hit the porch and I lost my balance.

I was so going down.

Before I crashed, the entrance door swung open and a blur shot across the porch.

Strong arms caught me around the waist and jerked me up.

The sudden impact against something hard and dry knocked my glasses off my face and punched a grunt out of me.

For a moment, the only thing that moved was my pounding heart.

“You okay?” asked a low-pitched male voice.