The Indie – Summer
THE INDIE
SUMMER
The following morning, the lights were already on inside my store when I arrived.
Ugh. I resisted the urge to calculate how much that would cost me on the utility bill.
Walking through the “slow burn” section, I stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of Adrian sitting in my chair.
“You have ten seconds to leave or I’m calling the cops on you for trespassing.”
“I’ll wait,” he said.
“I mean it.” I crossed my arms. “I’m serious.”
“I’m sure you are.” He stood up and adjusted his jacket.
Walking right over to me, he stared at me for several seconds without saying a word. That strange yet familiar tension settled between us again.
“I came here to address our conversation from yesterday,” he said.
“You mean apologize?”
“Maybe,” he said. “If you would let me finish what I was trying to say to you…”
“No, that’s okay.” I shook my head. “I meant what I said about seeing you enough.”
“Fair enough,” he said, extending his hand. “I apologize.”
“Apology unaccepted.” I left his hand hanging. “You can return to ruining my life now.”
He narrowed his eyes, looking like he wanted to say something further.
“The door is that way,” I said, pointing. “I don’t have the fancy street signs like your store does, but I doubt you need those to get out.”
“You were dead-ass wrong about my parents and an inheritance, Summer.” He growled. “I worked my ass off to get Sinclair off the ground.”
“With a twenty-million-dollar head start?”
“That’s not what happened.”
“Was it ‘only’ ten million then?” I asked. “Does that make you feel better about the silver spoon you were born with?”
“There were no fucking millions for me when I started,” he hissed. “There wasn’t a single dime.”
Bullshit…
“Well, that twenty-million-dollar number is on your website bio,” I said. “Isn’t that how we’re judging people these days?”
“I was the only one of my siblings who didn’t get a dime of the inheritance.” He glared at me. “What the rest of them got wasn’t much after lawyers’ fees.”
“Why is that?”
“Because—” His jaw tightened. “That's none of your business.”
“You're the one who broke into my store to tell me about it.”
“We all agreed to never say a public word about it so it wouldn’t tarnish our father’s legacy,” he said, relenting. “No one needed to know that his version of ‘mourning’ our mother was signing away most of the money to a string of mistresses who never even showed up for him when he died.”
“So, yes,” he said. “I might’ve grown up with a silver spoon in my mouth, but it was yanked out at seventeen, and I’ve just kept up the facade while I figured shit out on my own.”
I said nothing.
“For the record, Summer—” His voice was low. “Your apology won’t be accepted either.”
“I wasn’t planning to give you one.”
“You should be,” he said. “Right now.”
“No, Adrian. I’m not.”
“Summer…”
“Adrian…”
He suddenly stamped his mouth over mine and kissed me, instantly erasing whatever the hell I was about to say.
He obliterated all my fantasies with his tongue, and I felt my knees buckling.
I grabbed the front of his jacket to steady myself, but he took that as an invitation to pull me closer. His hand slid around my waist as he deepened the kiss, and I completely forgot that I was supposed to hate him.
For several seconds, there was no Sinclair Street across the street, no dying bookstore, and no war between us.
There was only his mouth against mine and the embarrassing realization that every fantasy I’d had about kissing him hadn’t come close.
Fuck.
DING! The bell over my front door rang, and we both pulled away.
Oh my god…
He looked like he was tempted to pull me back into his arms, but Jenny stepped closer to us.
“What the hell is he doing in here, Summer?” she asked. “Is our Readers Behaving Badly Wall no longer sacred to you?”
“He came to tell me about a discount he was offering at his warehouse,” I saved face. “He’s going to offer us ninety percent off instead of the typical forty.”
“Ohhh.” Jenny didn’t look convinced at all. “How nice of him. Is that before or after he steals one hundred percent of our customers?”
“I should go,” Adrian said.
“Yes.” Jenny pointed to the door. “You should.”
He looked at me before leaving and made his way out.
“I will let this moment of heated treason slide, since you’ve been working really hard.” Jenny wagged her finger. “But just this once.”