Crazy Girl(52)

“I brought some boxes and moving tape. I had some leftover from when I moved.”

He lifted his brows slightly.

“What’s that look?” I inquired, gathering my hair up to tie into a knot, ready to get to work.

“Nothing,” he murmured, shaking his head. “It’s just, it didn’t look like you had much in your house.”

I looked away from him. I’d forgotten he’d stepped inside my house the night he’d driven me home after I’d blinded myself. In truth, I had made every effort to wipe everything about that night from my mind. When I’d sold my dream house, the house I’d built after my good fortune in writing, I’d sold the furniture, too. Everything. The only things I’d kept were a television, small dresser, and my mattress, which was on my bedroom floor. There were also my books—my beauties. Those I could not part with.

“I have a lot of books,” I explained as I walked into his kitchen and started sizing the room up, trying to figure out where the best place to start was. I hoped he’d afford me the same luxury I had given him moments before and just move on, but this was Wren we were talking about.

“Is there a reason why you don’t have any furniture?” he pressed.

My cheeks flamed with heat. How could I explain this? It was humiliating. I’m broke, my career is shit, I had to sell everything I own and still haven’t broken even.

But there was more to it than that. I didn’t want those things anymore. And that’s what I told him. The truth. “I don’t want…things.” I shrugged, avoiding his gaze. “Things own you. You think you own them, but that’s bullshit. You take pride in having this or that, but in the end, you end up killing yourself to keep them. People get attached to things, then you have to protect those things, so you kill yourself to have a place for those things. Then someone else might want those things you love, and you have to fight over them; it’s draining emotionally, and it’s just not worth it.”

Flicking my gaze to Wren, I found him watching me, his expression stoic. I widened my eyes, realizing I’d gone overboard in my explanation. I took a deep breath and tried to smooth my verbal vomit over. “I don’t want to be owned by things anymore.”

Pulling his lower lip between his teeth, he bobbed his head once and looked away from me. “I understand.”

There was an awkward beat of silence, and he still wasn’t looking at me. Damn. I’d just freaked him out with all my insane rambling and made him uncomfortable. He was right—I was crazy. The crazy girl. I decided we needed to move away from this subject. Fast.

“So…should I start here in the kitchen?”

Scratching the back of his neck, he rounded the counter and gazed upon the room with me. “I guess this is as good a place as any.”

Taking my hand, he held it in his, like we were a couple—like it was the most natural thing in the world. He hadn’t pushed me to explain myself or my situation. Instead, he’d let it go and now, took my hand to show me it was okay. It was okay that I didn’t want to talk about it. It was such a small gesture of affection, but it made my belly twist—in a good way. The man inspired me. I’d made him my muse, woven him into my book. But it was more than that. He terrified me, but I liked him. I really liked him. And the most cynical part of myself shouted at me to run, but I realized I didn’t want to. For the first time, in a long time, I wanted to believe in love.





Song Bird





We spent four hours packing. While Hannah handled the kitchen, I started boxing up my office. By the time we decided to stop, it was already ten at night, and I could tell she was tired, even though she insisted she wasn’t. It was late, and I’d blown it as far as keeping my end of the deal and feeding her. In a small town on a weeknight, the food options were limited, so we ended up grabbing some gas station burgers from the mom and pop store closest to my house because I was a real Casanova and I knew how to treat a lady.

As we climbed back in the car, I uttered, “I’m sorry I didn’t get us something earlier.” Literally, the one thing she’d asked for in exchange for helping me pack was food, and this was what I ended up giving her.

She shrugged. “We were in the packing zone. I didn’t even think about it either.”

One thing I liked about Hannah was she seemed to roll with certain things I would think some women might scoff at—gross burgers that’d sat under a heating lamp for who-knew-how-long being one of them. But she didn’t seem to mind a bit. Or maybe she was so hungry she didn’t care. Of course, her go-with-the-flow personality didn’t apply in all areas.

As I shifted gears and pulled the car to the road, checking for other cars, my eyes fell on her bare legs. The parking lot lighting was hitting her just right, accentuating the curves of her thighs, adding a sharp cut to her plump lips. The dress she’d worn to my house that day was fitted, but not tight—just enough to see what she had going on underneath. It had been damn near impossible not to slide my hands up it all day, loop my thumbs around the sides of her thong I knew she was wearing underneath, and slip them down her legs. As bad as I wanted to have her, I’d held off, the time constraint of my move plaguing me. Pulling onto the road, I decided to take the long way home that wouldn’t require much shifting of gears and would allow me to have a free hand. I could only hope this late on a week night out in the country, the roads would be clear of fellow travelers. Work time was definitely over.