Page 56 of Slapshot Summer
“Trick?”
“Did it draw in the ladies?”Her voice was heartbreakingly hopeful.
From the back seat, his brother whacked him on the shoulder.Yeah, he’d come along too, though Josh couldn’t figure out why.Nothing better to do than fuck with Josh, apparently.“This boy doesn’t need any fancy shirts for that, do you, bro?He’s the honey, and they buzz around him like flies and wasps.And cockroaches.”
Their mother glared at Brad in the rearview mirror.“Ew!That sounds disgusting.”
If only those two would carry on their own absurd conversation, but Josh wasn’t that lucky today.
“Sodidyou meet someone, Josh?”Mom prodded.
“Why does it matter to you so much?”He was trying not to be annoyed with her, he really was.Somewhere in his exhausted brain he understood that lashing out at her would not only be wrong, but it would be misdirected.His pain came from a completely different place, and there was nothing he could do about it.
“I’d like to be a grandmother before I’m eighty.”
Brad threw up his hands.“Don’t look at me.”
“You’ll notice I’m not,” she deadpanned.
“See there, bro?Stay single,” Brad chirped.“You don’t need some chick pulling you down like an anchor around your neck and drowning your sorry ass.”The bitter undertone in his words was unmistakable.“Welcome back to the real world, by the way.”
The real world sucks.
“Bradley, please!Josh and I are having a serious discussion.”
Were they, though?Took two to discuss, and Josh was an unwilling participant.He wasn’t mentally prepared to tell her about his decision because she was going to freak, and he sure as hell didn’t want to talk about Lexi becausehemight freak.In the end, he caved and went tourist brochure on her, describing the beauty of the beaches, the sparkling waters, and the weather.“You’d like it there, Mom.”
“Maybe you’ll take me someday.”
No, he didn’t want to return to Destiny.There would be too many reminders of Lexi around every corner, and his heart simply wouldn’t hold up.
Chapter 19
Flower Delivery
Threedayslater
LEXI PROPPED HER OPEN laptop on the scarred coffee table with a huff.She’d just sent the final cover letter to the last magazine on her list.If nothing came from those, she would need to expand into areas that didn’t appeal, like tech or automotive.She had no choice.She had to eat, and she had to make rent.
Stretched out in the secondhand armchair beside Lexi’s slip-covered, dilapidated couch, Anna looked at her over the top of her e-reader propped on her baby belly.The four dingy walls of Lexi’s run-down studio apartment reminded her she needed an upgrade, but that took capital she didn’t have.If only she could travel back to her beautiful suite at the Sapphire Hotel … and the beautiful man she’d left behind.
“Well?”her best friend prodded.“Any good news?”
“Not yet, but I only just submitted my sample article yesterday and these final applications today.We’ll see if I get any hits.”Since returning from Destiny, Lexi had feverishly focused every waking hour on writing and applying for positions as a copywriter—anything to distract her from her heartbreak.
How could leaving Josh hurt so damn bad after only knowing him one week?She felt as though someone had fisted a knife, plunged it into her heart, and twisted it until it had hollowed out a hole too big to fill.
“That’s great about the job, Lex, but I was referring to Josh.Have you heard from him?”
“Not much.He’s been busy getting ready to go.We’ve traded a few ho-hum texts.Not much else.”His new team had only given him a few days to get everything together, and he’d had to sprint through his preparations.He was leaving for Russia tonight.She crossed her fingers that they’d get a chance for a long talk later while he waited for his flight.
“Ho-hum in what way?‘How’s the weather?’That kind of thing?”
Lexi lifted her eyes to the ceiling.Jeez, were those new brown stains up there?“Last night he texted me for my address.When I asked him why, he said he wanted to send me something.He wouldn’t say what.”
“Flowers, probably.He sounds like the flowers type.”
“There’s a ‘flowers type’?What does that even mean?”
