“Been talking to Leah about me?”
“I mean, she was talking about you. I didn’t ask,” I answered, basically repeating the words he’d said to me days earlier.
“Hmm…well, to answer your question, I don’t have to work a billion hours a week. I just choose to.”
“Why? Why would anyone want to work that much?” I asked.
His eyes flew to mine in a heated glare. “Some people enjoy what they do. Maybe I’m just driven.”
“What do you do?” I asked.
“I’m in pharmaceutical sales.”
“Oh, please!” I said, laughing, “That’s total bullshit! You? In sales? You have to hate it. The Garrett I knew would have cut off his left arm before taking a job like that.”
I could see by his expression that I’d hit home. His eyes lost focus, and he wouldn’t meet mine.
“Yeah, well…I guess we all change, don’t we? The girl I knew would have never become a tight-ass accountant, so I guess we didn’t know each other as well as we thought we did.”
“No, I guess not.”
The rest of the evening was spent in stifling silence as I tried to remember the boy I once knew. I wondered if I would ever understand the man who was standing before me.
Do I deserve to?
~Garrett~
“You look lovely, sweetie,” my mother said over my shoulder.
I gazed into the floor-length mirror wedged in the corner of my parents’ bedroom. I’d snuck in here a few minutes earlier to try and adjust the monstrosity of a bow tie that was currently choking the life out of my windpipes.
“I feel like a penguin,” I muttered. I readjusted the bow tie for the hundredth time.
“A very handsome penguin,” she amended.
She spun me around, which was not an easy task. I was only sixteen, but I was a football player, and I practiced every waking moment. I was a walking, talking muscle machine, not that I was bragging.
“Are you ready for tonight?” she asked.
“Mom, it’s just a dinner.” A dinner I had to wear a freaking tuxedo for.
“Garrett, Mia’s family is different from ours.”
“I know, Mom. They’re loaded,” I scoffed.
“It’s more than that. They think very highly of themselves and the people they associate with. I don’t want you to get hurt.”
“Mia would never hurt me,” I said adamantly.
“You really like this girl, don’t you?”
“I love her, Mom.”
Vibrations on the nightstand next to my bed tore me from my dream, bringing me back to reality. My eyes blinked open, and I groggily searched around in the dark for the source of what had awoken me. Palming my phone, I hit a button, hoping it would end the incessant buzzing.
Without bothering to see who the hell was calling me at this unholy hour, I said, “Hello?”
“Garrett? I’m sorry. I didn’t know who else to call.”
“Mia?” All remnants of sleep fell away at the sound of her panicked voice.
“I think someone just tried to break into my house,” she said.
“Did you call the police?” I was already standing, pulling on a pair of jeans over my boxers.
“No, I think they’re gone. A car drove by, and it might have scared them off, but I’m frightened they might come back. I didn’t want to call the cops. What if it was a cat? Or a drunk frat boy? I’m sorry. I’m being stupid…and I woke you up…” she trailed off.
“Look, I’m already dressed.” I paused, throwing a shirt over my head. “I’ll drive over now and check things out for you. Then, you’ll at least be able to go back to sleep.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be there in ten.”
I ended the call, grabbed my keys, and threw on a pair of shoes. I ran toward my front door, and the small mosaic mirror next to it caught my eye. Clare had bought the mirror for me while on her honeymoon a few years ago. I took a quick look at my refection as I undid the lock.
It was two in the morning. My ex-girlfriend—ex-fiancée, if I wanted to get technical—had just called. And what had I done? I had jumped out of bed to be her knight in shining armor.
“What the f**k are you doing, Garrett?”
My reflection had no answers, so I just turned toward the door, opened it, and walked out—toward Mia, which is where I always seemed to go. The irony wasn’t lost on me that in an entire city filled with thousands of people, Mia and I lived less than a few minutes, a few city blocks really, from each other. The one person I needed to be the farthest away from was basically my neighbor.
In the time it took the radio DJ to run a few commercials, I was knocking on Mia’s door, impatiently waiting for her to answer. My eyes scanned the area, looking around for anything out of the ordinary. I was planning on walking around her house, but first, I needed to make sure she was safe.
The door creaked open, and there was Mia, standing in pink boy shorts and a tank top. My eyes quickly swept down her body, remembering how she’d felt under me, over me—
Fuck.
She’d just been scared out of her mind by an attempted robbery, and here I was, practically drooling at her door like some pervert, trying to figure out if I could see her ni**les through her top.
And I could.
My hungry gaze obviously gave away my thoughts because she hastily covered her exposed body with the matching robe that had been hanging open.
Mentally shaking my head to clear away the p**n ographic thoughts, I asked, “Are you okay?”
She nodded. “Yeah, I haven’t heard anything else. I’m sure it was nothing.” She looked embarrassed and flustered.
“You don’t know whether it was nothing, Mia. Why don’t you go make yourself some coffee or something? I’m going to go check everything out. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She agreed, and I turned to make my way around her house. I checked her window locks and gate. I found footprints near the entrance of the locked gate at the side of her house. They weren’t mine or hers. Of course, I couldn’t tell if the owner of the footprints had sinister intent, but it was enough to piss me off.
I walked back through her front door and turned to lock it behind me.
“We’re replacing all your locks tomorrow. You’ve got twenty-year-old locks out there, Mia. And you’re getting a dog.”
She was just sitting down with two cups of coffee at the kitchen table as I made my announcement. She turned and gave me a dumbfounded look. “I’m getting a what?”