Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 73398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 367(@200wpm)___ 294(@250wpm)___ 245(@300wpm)
I frowned and opened up the text messages, going back to the last text that I’d read, and followed their texts until I arrived at the one that mentioned sex.
Cora (11:49 am): Sex is the devil.
Frankie (11:49 am): WRONG MESSAGE CORA!
That was it. There were no more messages.
I frowned, and it took me all of two point five seconds to think it through before I had Cora’s name queued up on my phone and calling her.
“Hello?” Cora asked, sounding pleasantly amused.
“What was that message about?” I asked, sounding much calmer than I felt.
“Oh,” she paused. “You don’t respond to any of our messages, but you respond to that one?”
Yes. Yes, I did.
“Cora…”
She sighed. “Janie and Kayla added me to their group messages, and it’s getting to the point where I’m unsure what in the hell they want from me. They’re trying to fix me up on a blind date with this veteran speed dating stuff. It’s not that I don’t think that veterans shouldn’t have dates. It’s just that I don’t want to be the one dating them. I’m happy right where I am. But Janie seems to think that I need to have sex in order to be able to live a happy and fulfilling life.” She sighed. “To make matters worse, she wants to set me up on a blind date tonight, before the speed dating thing, at a bar where June sometimes works. She just wants to make sure that I won’t freak out during speed dating. Something about her coaching me. I’m gonna have to do it, too, because she’ll just give the man my address, and I’ll be forced to open the door without realizing that she told him where I lived. That, or she’ll get me to go somewhere and blind date guy will be there waiting for me…she’s done that before.”
Sad thing was, I kind of agreed with Janie.
Not about the fact that Cora should be dating someone, but about the fact that sex was one of the best things in life.
It just had to be with the right person—for her, anyway.
Call it sexist. I don’t care.
But, a woman like Cora deserved to have someone who treated her right. Someone she took the time to get to know first before taking that particular step.
Me? I was past all that.
I wasn’t looking for love—I’d tried that, and it didn’t work out.
I wasn’t looking for any more kids—I loved my kid, and now that she was grown, I wasn’t looking to start over.
I wasn’t even looking for a relationship beyond the occasional fuck. I’d spent way too much of my life trying to make something bad good. I didn’t have the desire, nor need, to make that happen again.
Though I had a feeling, if I could do it for anyone, I could do it for Cora.
But, again, I wasn’t in the position to ever be what she needed. She was young. She wasn’t even in the same decade as me. She’d want babies, love, and a relationship.
All I wanted was a steady fuck and someone to share a beer with every once in a while.
But the idea of her getting set up on a blind date? Yeah, that rubbed me wrong.
I was also a fucking hypocrite.
If I wouldn’t allow myself to have her, then surely, I could find her someone that I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, was good.
“How about you let me handle Janie.” I hesitated. “And I know a guy that will play along.”
The sound of pure relief in her voice when she replied with, “Thanks,” had me smiling.
“Anytime. I’ll see you tonight.”
***
It was when I was literally walking into the bar later that night with Tyler Cree, the chief of police and a good friend of mine, that I realized that maybe she thought that guy playing along would be me.
If I’d had any doubts, seeing her face when I introduced Tyler was enough to make me feel like the biggest asshole in the world.
Her face, which had warmed at the sight of me, quickly fell when I introduced Tyler.
Tyler offered his hand to Cora, then gave Janie, Kayla, and June all nods. He’d met them before.
The woman, Reagan, who’d been there the night my ex-wife had her shit show in the fanciest restaurant in town just a couple of months ago, was sitting next to Janie.
She was chattering with Janie’s husband, Rafe, and discussing her thesis paper that she was doing for her graduate program.
Every once in a while, she’d turn to Cora to ask her for qualification on something, but then she’d turn back and keep discussing whatever it was she was discussing. Something about plants or something.
“Tyler, this is Cora.” Janie smiled. “Cora, this is Tyler Cree, the new chief of police that took over for the old chief of police when—”