Once a Charmer by Sharla Lovelace

Author:Sharla Lovelace
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Lyrical Shine
Published: 2017-10-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I sat on the edge of the pavilion, drinking a water and absorbing the peace of the light chatting and laughter in the background with the crickets chirping nearby. Home wasn’t that peaceful. I’d either have snarky and rude Angel back (I held no delusions that the girl who helped dress me two hours earlier would still be hanging around), or I would end up in my kitchen reliving that kiss, or in my laundry room staring inside my dryer and hyperventilating.

I chose crickets for the moment. Because whatever was eating at Angel tonight could wait a minute. I’d had enough of that. Kiss-obsessing was ridiculous at my age, and plus it felt like we’d gained some of our old ground back tonight. And hyperventilating wasn’t just about the money, but now the holy fuckedness of how I’d lost an entire afternoon talking to Mr. Bailey, when I distinctly remembered every word. Sully told me to let it go, but—

He didn’t understand. He didn’t get growing up with something kind of off-color in your house. Something you deny so much that you start to believe your own protests.

My dad was a gambler, and that was bad enough. It was embarrassing enough to lose everything and the whole school know that you’re poor enough to be on the charity list for holiday food drives. I couldn’t handle the extra talk like Lanie Barrett had to deal with. Her Aunt Ruby was always rumored about with her eccentric ways and hints at premonitions. I could never have shouldered my dad’s wacked-out dream life making the circuit along with everything else. Not like that. And now—I mean, I knew they were friends, but to find out that they were evidently a special little trio—and they found enough money back then to still be making a difference today.

Lanie inherited eight hundred thousand dollars that no one knew the origin of. So my dad had at least that much at one time. I had to shut that thought out. My fingers curled into fists at the swirls of things that swam through my head if I didn’t. The things we’d lost. The things we had to fight for, because he “never had enough” to cover his debts. And now the diner…

I closed my eyes. “Crickets, damn it.”

“What was that?”

My eyes popped open to see Bash strolling up, shirt untucked, hair looking as if he’d rifled through it a few too many times. A lazy smile on his face.

Basically, even in the dark after the main lights were shut off, he looked good enough to eat and come back for dessert, and my entire body reacted accordingly.

“Sorry, I was trying to drive out all the outside noise from my head and let the crickets have their way with me,” I said.

He stopped about two feet away and tucked his hands into his jeans pockets. He didn’t speak for a while and neither did I. It was bizarrely okay, and us, and not us, and normal, and not normal and sexy as hell to do that.

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