Find Me (The Found Duet #2)(25)
Author: Laurelin Paige

Both possibilities scared me.

“Besides,” he said, after a minute. “I didn’t want you to wait around for me, and I thought that reaching out might keep you from going on with your life.”

“Fucking incredible.” I’d told him back then that I wouldn’t wait for him, but that didn’t give him the right to make sure I didn’t. It was my prerogative to waste my life. It was my right to pine.

“You have to believe that none of this was what I wanted.” He was sincere. Soft.

But I was too angry to be affected. “Obviously you didn’t care about what I wanted either.”

“I’m not going to apologize for wanting to set you free from my baggage.”

There was another knock at the door. “In a minute,” I shouted, before the intruder had a chance to walk in.

Then I turned back to him, no longer able to keep my cool. “What the hell, Justin? If you wanted to set me free then you shouldn’t have told me you’d come back. You shouldn’t have told me that you’d find me. You shouldn’t have proclaimed your love and made me think we—”

The door flung open suddenly, interrupting my rant.

I threw my rage in that direction. “Jesus, what is it?”

Liesl stood with a hand covering her eyes as if she were afraid of what she was interrupting. “I’m really sorry, I really, really am, but we need you out there because the club is supposed to open in two minutes and there is a line already at the door and there are no cash drawers out because Laynie locked her keys in the safe, which might actually have been my fault and that’s why she sent me here to get yours instead, I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry.”

She delivered her speech in one long run-on sentence, with no breaths, spoken so fast it took me a second to register what she was saying.

Then when I did, it took me another second to think about where the heck my own keys were.

In my purse. In the office. In my cubby. Which was secured with a combination lock. “In my locker,” I snapped. “The combo is twelve to the right, then go left, pass seventeen once, the next time land on it. Then right—”

“You really expect me to remember this?”

No. I didn’t. This was Liesl, after all.

Goddammit. Just when we were getting somewhere.

“I have to go.” I stood, wondering if he caught that my combination had been his tattoo, the date he had inked on his forearm. For him, it was the date Corinne had died. For me, it was him.

JC waved his hand. “It’s okay. I understand. I didn’t come at a good time. I should have waited, but I—” His voice lowered. “I had to see you. I couldn’t wait anymore.”

An unwanted thrill ran through my body, heating me in places that I wished would stay as cold as the rest of me. Why did he still have to have such an effect on me? Why did I still have to care?

I opened my mouth to form some sort of polite response when Liesl tugged on my arm. “She’s yelling in my headset, Gwen,” she pleaded.

Laynie was indeed yelling loud enough that her shouts were audible even to me. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I muttered.

“It’s fine. Go.” JC stood as he spoke, sounding disappointed, the most emotion he’d shown since he’d walked into the club. It made my blood boil, and not all out of anger. Especially when his eyes raked down my body, touching me with his gaze in ways that felt more intimate than when Chandler had his hands all over me. I didn’t want to blush and squirm but I couldn’t help myself.

Just like how I couldn’t help myself from giving him a onceover as well. When I found the crotch of his pants were tight, my desire went from sizzle to full blaze. And, damn, did that make me even madder.

I wished with everything I was that I didn’t have to leave. I wanted to stay and scream and throw things and maybe have an angry fuck to get rid of some of the tension, which, I knew, would be a terrible idea, and so it was probably a very good thing that, instead of staying, I had to go and open the fucking club.

“Gwen! Come the fuck on already!”

JC opened his mouth to speak, but I wanted the last word. “Nice to meet you, Justin,” I said snidely. “Maybe next time you’ll actually let me get to know you.”

I left before he could respond, letting the door slam on my way out.

Chapter Seven

JC stayed in my mind the whole night—as I set out the cash drawers, as I cleaned up the bottle of wine spilled all over the main dance floor, as I gave away a free beer to satisfy the customer complaining about his mug having a hair in it. Even though I was engaged in each present moment, my senses were alight and alive, as if JC was still nearby, still drawing my body and soul toward him.