Page 44 of Never After Us
My romantic history isn’t even a history.It’s a trail of moments where women wanted me, and I didn’t mind being wanted.That was the whole equation.When you join a band at sixteen and spend your late teens and early twenties on the road, you learn quickly that attraction is transactional.
Someone reaches for you, and you let them.You don’t stop to wonder what you feel, or if you feel anything at all.You just go along with it because it’s easier than confronting the emptiness you don’t have the language for.
I never slowed down long enough to consider effort, honesty, or building something real.And once I finally sobered up enough to see myself clearly, it hit me that I had no clue how to create anything that didn’t collapse the second I touched it.
Add celebrity to that mess and suddenly you can’t tell who wants you and who wants access to whatever they think your life looks like.
No wonder Dexter hid who he was from Ali.I used to think he was being stupid, but now?I get it.He wanted her to love him for who he is and not just what he represented.It’s the only thing that feels remotely genuine.
Not that it matters with my neighbor.
Nothing’s going to happen.
She has a child—a blunt, perceptive one—who will probably sprint in the opposite direction once she spends enough time near me.Still, I rub a hand over my eyes as tension knots through my shoulders.
I blameher—Mara whatever-her-last-name-is.
This is how I end up outside my balcony at six in the morning instead of seven-thirty—like avoiding Mara has become my new workout routine.Rain taps against the glass walls, a rhythm I could match if I grabbed my sticks.Maybe I should drum today.Call Barret to see if he’s available—or if his studio is, and let the music swallow whatever’s clawing at me.
I turn back toward the kitchen for my mug when something shifts at the edge of my vision.Her balcony.
There’s movement and ...of course it’s the ray of fucking sunshine.
Mara.
But it’s not just Mara.
It’s Mara doing yoga, because of course she is.She’s barefoot in Dancer Pose—one foot rooted to the balcony, the other lifted behind her, caught in one hand as her arm stretches forward into the gray morning.Her body curves in a long, elegant line, breath moving through her as if the day is something she can shape if she holds the pose long enough.
Her red curls are tied back, a few loose strands brushing her cheek as she inhales, steady and sure, as if the whole morning is hers to command.She looks like she stepped out of one of those wellness magazines people pretend not to buy at health food stores, all quiet focus and impossible balance.
She also looks like trouble.The kind you see coming and still walk toward.
...and sunlight, even under a sky that doesn’t feel like sharing any.
And maybe that’s why my chest pulls in a way I don’t want to examine.Absolutely not.I refuse to stand here on my own balcony catching feelings like an idiot.I don’t do that.Not during my twenties and definitely not now.
Mara shifts again—smooth, controlled, confident—as she releases Dancer Pose and folds forward into Standing Splits.Her palms brace against the balcony floor, her leg rising behind her in one long, sinful arc that makes my pulse lurch.
From this angle I can see the full line of her—her backside, the toned stretch of her thighs, the curve where her shirt rides up—and my body reacts before my brain can throw a punch at the impulse.Heat builds low and fast, sharp enough that I have to adjust my stance and pretend I’m not one second away from groaning out loud like an idiot.
No.
Absolutely not.I’m not getting turned on by sunrise yoga.
She glances over—upside down from Standing Splits—and freezes.Her leg wavers for a second, then lowers with that dancer’s grace that makes me want to ruin her.She rises slow, hands sliding down her legs like she needs a second to come back into her body.But all I can think is how much I want that mouth on my cock.
She straightens, tucks a curl behind her ear, her skin flushed, and her lips parted like she knows exactly what the fuck she’s doing to me.Her eyes lock on mine, and it hits low.
Real low.
My cock’s hard, and she hasn’t said a word.
“Good morning, grump,” she calls out, bright—too bright for someone who just caught me staring like I forgot how necks work.
Her smile is sunshine dipped in trouble, and my pulse reacts like it didn’t get the memo that we’re keeping things civil.
Absolutely not.I’m not doing this with her at six a.m.on a fucking balcony.
