Find Me (The Found Duet #2)(7)
Author: Laurelin Paige

Goddammit. Chandler was attached.

And every ounce of guilt inside me multiplied by ten. I set my water bottle down and stomped over to him. “Uh uh. No chilling. No spending the day together.” He looked up at me with mopey eyes, gutting me. “Look, the minute after you leave, I’m just going to shower and then sleep.”

His mouth tilted up at the corner. “Then I’ll just shower and sleep with you. Or not sleep, if you’d rather.” He waggled his eyebrows.

“No, I wouldn’t rather.” I picked up his shoes and handed them to him.

“Fine, fine. I can sleep. I was up late and it’s early. We could cuddle.” His expression grew softer, even more boyish than usual. “It could be nice.”

I hesitated. I considered, truly considered what he was suggesting. Because cuddling would be nice. Sleeping against a warm body would be very nice. And so why couldn’t I have that with Chandler? There was an age difference between us, yes. A significant age difference, but Norma was eight years older than her boyfriend, Boyd, and that relationship worked well. Sure Chandler slept around a lot—the reason I demanded we always used condoms—but that’s what guys his age did. Overall, he was a really decent guy with a good name and a stable future ahead of him. Wouldn’t that be the best way to “quit” JC? To move on with someone else?

Except it would be a lie. I didn’t have any feelings for Chandler other than an appreciation for what he did for me physically and maybe a fondness of his general character. But it wasn’t love. Pretending it could be wouldn’t be fair to him or me. It wouldn’t be fair to JC either. If I was going to move on from him it needed to be to something that could grow. Not just to something that was available.

I sighed. “It could be nice, Chandler. For someone else. But not for me. It’s not what we are to each other.” Inwardly I cringed as I said words that JC had said to me once. They’d been false when he’d said them, and we’d both known that as strongly as I knew right now that they were true.

But to make sure Chandler knew what I was really saying, I rephrased. “It’s not what you are to me.”

To his credit, he managed to keep his disappointment fairly well masked. He could be stoic when it served him, it seemed. He really was more like Hudson than people gave him credit for.

“Not the arrangement. Right. Got it.” He slipped on his shoes then stood up. “See you again Sunday morning?”

Here was where JC had shown that I had meant something to him, even though I didn’t see it at the time. Because he hadn’t been able to let me go and that was exactly what I needed to do with Chandler.

So I did. “Uh, no. I think we’ve come to the end of this little fling. I mean…” Even though it was necessary, I didn’t want to hurt the kid. Which was easier said than done.

I leaned my weight onto one hip and tried to find an original way to say It’s not you, it’s me. “This has been really…fun. And really what I needed. You’ve reminded me what I need.” Namely, orgasms. “And what I don’t.” Namely, someone who liked me more than I liked him. “Now I’m taking things a different direction in my life, and I think I need to do it by myself.” Or at least with men who weren’t going to want more.

Please don’t fight for me, please don’t fight for me.

He didn’t.

“Okay. No biggie.” He shrugged, something he did a lot, I noticed. “If you change your mind, you’ve got my number.”

“Yeah. I do.”

He shifted awkwardly, as if wondering if he should hug me or kiss me. I made the decision easy, stepping aside so he couldn’t do either.

At the door, he looked back at me and smiled, his eyes hinting at melancholy. “So, uh, I hope you do change your mind.”

Before I could respond, he opened the door and left.

I let out a deep breath and then threw myself onto the couch. I hugged my arms around myself and let the tears fall instead of holding them back like I usually did. It had only been one day since I’d chosen July Fourth as the day to get over JC and two weeks until that day arrived.

That meant I only had two weeks left to miss him, and I planned to use that time missing him a whole damn lot.

Chapter Three

“He knows,” Alayna insisted. “He hasn’t said it outright, but he knows.”

It was Thursday, the night of our weekly dinner together, and she and I were sitting outside on the deck while we waited for the chef to finish preparing dinner. Norma was with us as well, hoping tonight would be the night she got the courage to tell Hudson about her relationship with Boyd.