Page 25 of Reckless (Adventures in Love 3)
Lying on my couch, where I planted myself twenty minutes ago when Cybil left to go home, I try to talk myself into getting into the shower, but that room feels really far away at the moment. I don’t drink very often, so the four glasses of wine I drank have totally gone to my head. Hearing a knock on the door, I frown and lift my head off the arm of the couch to look at it. Obviously I don’t have superpowers, so I can’t see who it is, but that doesn’t mean I don’t try. When the person knocks again, I push up off the couch and attempt to walk in a straight line to the door but end up zigzagging my way across the room with Pebbles following me.
“I’m okay,” I assure my pup, picking him up so that I don’t end up stepping on him. I hold him against me as I open the door, and my heart does a stupid thump when I find Maverick standing outside with his hands tucked into his coat pockets. “Coming to check on me again?”
“After seeing how drunk Cybil was, I figured I should.”
“You didn’t have to.” I keep myself planted in front of my door, making it clear that he’s not invited in. “As you can see, I’m totally fine. Actually, when you knocked, I was headed to the shower.”
“Do you want company?”
“In the shower?” I joke, and he licks his bottom lip, then smiles.
“I was thinking more along the lines of a movie.” He reaches his hand out to pet the top of Pebbles’s head.
“I’m just going to go to bed.”
“Do you work tomorrow?”
“No.” I lean into the doorjamb because standing upright is not working for me any longer. “I have the day off, so I’m spending the day in bed with a hot Russian mobster.”
“A what?”
“A Russian mobster.” I wave my hand out when he gives me a What the heck are you talking about look. “It’s a book I’m reading. Do you like to read?”
“The only stuff I read is for work, so no, not really.”
“That’s a bummer. Tanner reads to Cybil, in the bath. It’s sweet.” My eyes widen when I realize what I just said. “You can’t tell him that I told you about that.”
“I won’t,” he says with a smile as a gust of wind causes me to shiver. “Go on in. It’s cold out here.”
“Yeah.” I take a step back. “You really don’t have to keep checking on me,” I say, and he looks like he wants to say something but thinks better of it.
“Night, Jade.”
“Night, Maverick.” I watch him walk to his truck before I shut the door, then wait to hear his engine start up before I head back into my apartment.
Lying in my bed a while later after my shower, I stare at the ceiling for a long time, thinking about Maverick and what Cybil said about him pulling away from everyone. I don’t think she’s right about him having a girlfriend; I can’t imagine him not bringing someone he cares about around to meet the people he considers his family. I wonder, though, if seeing his friends happy and falling in love didn’t cause him to pull away.
And if it did, I can understand why. It’s not easy watching the people you are closest to fall in love, get married, and have kids when you’re still doing the same thing you were doing five years ago. So maybe his interest in me is because he knows that he and I are in the same boat, and maybe, just maybe, he needs a friend too.
Chapter 9
JADE
After knocking on the front door of Cybil’s house, I walk inside and call out, “Hello?”
“In the kitchen,” Cybil calls back, so I drop my purse on the entryway table and head that way as she shouts, “Are you hungover?”
“No,” I say as I find her in the kitchen helping Claire eat some kind of orange goo. “I drank about a gallon of water before I went to bed and took an aspirin.” I kiss her cheek, then lean down to get a gooey kiss from Claire that tastes like orange and banana. “Are you hungover?”
“No, I thought I would be, but I woke up this morning feeling fabulous.”
“Fabulous, huh?” I laugh, wiggling my brows, and she shrugs while her cheeks turn pink.
“It was a really good night.”
“Good.” I take a seat and rest my arms on the counter. “So what do you think about last night, and not the part that happened after you came home?”
“I’m even more convinced that we should open the store.” Her gaze locks with mine. “I know you’ve had a lot of doubts about it, but I think that between the women we met last night, along with you and me, the store will be a success. They’re going to do everything they can to get people in the store, and I know we’ll do the same.”
