Finding Kyle(33)

Whatever.

“Alright,” I grudgingly say, although I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to at least myself that I was excited about the prospect of spending the day with Jane. While I still believe I made the right call in pushing her away the other night, it didn’t mean I was happy about it. Jane has brought a tremendous amount of brightness into my life the last few weeks, and she has made the hiding out and waiting at least bearable. As long as I can keep my hands to myself, why not take advantage of that brightness today?

?

I peer over the edge of the book I have opened in front of me and look at Jane. She’s sitting across from me in a big, mushy-looking chair with her back pressed up against one arm and her legs thrown over the other. She’s reading a book she’d bought about fifteen minutes ago. After we both purchased coffees, we decided to have some quiet time to read in this pretty amazing bookstore she brought me to. It’s massive with rows and rows of books, but it has little alcove sitting areas all around where you can enjoy your spoils or peruse potential purchases. Jane had also bought a big cinnamon roll, and I will admit it may have been a little torturous watching her lick her fingers when she was done, but then she settled into her chair quietly and she’s been ignoring me ever since.

It does appear that she took me at face value and is accepting the friendship boundary I put in place. She seems to be her usual quirky self, throwing movie lines at me when the situation presents. The first one came on the ferry as we got out of my truck that was parked with several others that were catching the ride across Frenchman’s Bay to Bar Harbor. She’d put her sunglasses on her face, pushed them up the bridge of her nose, and said, “Roads? Where we’re going, we don’t need roads. Back to the Future. 1985.”

I couldn’t fucking help it. Of course, I laughed. She gave me back a sparkling grin, and I thought perhaps this might be a very good day.

But sadly, the more I’m around her, the more I’m hating the boundary I put in place. I can smell her subtle perfume, which is as light and airy as her personality, and I can see the bare skin of her legs and how it glows, and I know damn well it would be as soft as silk if I touched it, and Jesus fucking Christ… this just sucks.

Jane’s head tilts to look at me, and she totally busts me staring at her over the edge of my book, which is some crime thriller I’d picked up.

Before she can even say anything to try to embarrass me for my blunt perusal, I nod at her book and ask, “What are you reading?”

Keeping her thumb inside the pages to hold her place, she turns it around and shows me the cover. It’s of a bare-chested man giving a smoldering look to the camera.

I look back to her and smirk.

“What?” she asks defensively. “I like romance books. So what?”

I hold one hand up, palm raised to her in defense. “Hey. I didn’t say anything.”

“No,” she mutters. “But you had that look.”

“What look?” I counter, but I know damn well what look I gave her.

“That totally judgey look people give you when you read romance,” she huffs.

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” I tell her truthfully. I merely thought it funny she was reading a book with a half-naked guy on the front. “Why do people judge you for reading romance?”

Jane swings her legs off the chair arm and plants her feet, leaning toward me a bit. “Many people think this stuff is just fluff. It’s not literary. Waste of time to read and it’s for simpleminded people.”

“You are in no way simpleminded,” I point out. That’s the honest fucking truth as I think Jane’s about as bright as they come.

Jane holds the book out and waves it. “I read this because it makes me feel good. It transports me out of my reality and gives me all the feels.”

I eye the cover dubiously. “All the feels?”

“About love and romance,” she says dreamily, and I have to force myself not to grimace. “I know that’s a girl thing, but the authors who write this stuff? They really know how to reach you down deep into the center of your chest.”

“If it’s all about love and feeling emotion,” I have to ask, “then why does it look like it’s about porn on the cover?”

Jane’s eyes flick down to the cover, and she gives a shrug as she looks back up to me. Holding the book out for me to inspect the cover again, she says with a grin, “You got to admit. It’s eye catching.”

I give a short bark of a laugh, cognizant though that I’m in a bookstore, so it’s not overly loud. “I could see why it caught your attention.”

Jane leans a little closer to me and says in an almost conspiratorial tone, “While I read these books for the romance and the relationship, not going to lie… there are some smoking hot sex scenes in some of these books.”

And if that’s not a punch to the fucking gut. Thinking about Jane reading about sex. About hot, sweaty, dirty sex. And wondering then what she might do when she’s alone, reading about hot, sweaty, dirty sex.

I shift uncomfortably in my chair and give another nod toward the book. “I’ve never read a romance, and without a doubt never will, but really… how many ways can a love story be told?”

“Oh, hundreds and hundreds,” she says quickly. “No, probably thousands and millions. I mean, the characters are different, settings different, plots are different.”