Page 75 of The True Garza

“Okay.”

Before long, I’m gripping at his muscles and stifling my cries into his chest as I come all over his fingers.

This time, I don’t return to consciousness.

I’m just… out.

CHAPTER Twenty

“Take the money.”

Lonny

I wake up with aray of sun on my skin and a smile on my face. Who knew sleeping on a mattress on the ground could be this comfortable?

True is missing, though. A vague memory of him whispering against my lips that he was going out for a run flits across my mind. But it could’ve just as well been a dream.

I dawdle in bed, watching the slice of sunlight stream through the window and across my bare thigh. Hoping for True to walk in and take advantage of me and my weakness again in the most delicious way possible.

Eventually, when my stomach starts to complain, I reluctantly roll out and take a shower. Hating every minute of it.I want to keep his scent on my skin.

My clothes are still in his SUV outside, so I steal a plain tee and running shorts from his drawers, then head downstairs. Finding his keys on the side table in the foyer, I grab them, head outside, and get my bag from the trunk.

I’m walking back to the house when I notice someone’s watching me. At the house in the cul-de-sac, a pretty woman stands in the walkway juststaringat me, with a stack of mail in hand. I’ve seen her before, but I can’t quite place her at the moment. Probably because I’m thrown by the way she’s staring at me like she doesn’t think I’m real.

Is she one of True’s women?

Irrational jealousy prompts me to flip the bird at her, long and hard so she knows I mean it, then stomp back into the house.

Dammit, I knew getting involved with True would turn me crazy.

I’ve just finishedwhipping up something to eat with what paltry ingredients I could find in True’s scanty fridge and pantry when I hear the front door open. Seconds later, True emerges from the narrow foyer drenched in sweat.

Late-night running, I can understand. But who goes running when the sun is glaringly bright and blazing hot in the sky? LA sun is no joke.

“Hey,” he says, removing his ear-pods.

“You run an awful lot.”

“Still not as much as I used to. I did track in high school and college.” He jerks his chin to the counter, where I’ve plated some toasted bread with turkey slices, potato wedges, and cherry tomatoes. “Where’d you find food?”

“You’ve got a right to ask.” I can’t help laughing. “Not even one of your many women bother to keep your pantry fresh and stocked for you?”

The potatoes I found were sprouting, and the turkey slices had less than a day before expiration. But I made do because I’m starving.

“I only need them to keep their panties fresh, not my pantry.” He shrugs. “And I mostly eat out, at my brother’s or my mom’s.”

“Well, there was hardly anything, and I threw out all the stuff that’d gone bad.” I get a bottled water from the fridge for him. “Here. You must be parched from that hot sun.”

He strides over and takes the bottle, leaning against the counter.

“Do you eat breakfast?” I ask. “Or are you a protein-shake kind of man?”

“Shake.”

“Figures. I’ll make you some.”

I get the whey protein from the cupboard where I’d seen it earlier, and one of his five shaker bottles. From the fridge, I fetch the single carton of almost expired oat milk, then pause to ask, “With milk or water?”