Chapter Eight
Willow
“Arghhhhhhh!!” I shout as I smack my phone against the arm of the sofa.
“You should of just taken his money Wills. It’s not like it would of made a dent in his bank account.” Alina says while pouring our coffees into two travel mugs.
“No. It’s the principle. He knocked me down and basically ignored that he had done it, all while watching me like I was a freak show he was amused by. I didn’t want to humiliate myself further by taking cash from him in the middle of a busy club.” I grumble getting up from the sofa.
“C’mon, I don’t want to be late to work and make this day any worse.” I lift my travel mug from the counter and start packing my bag for the day.
“We have the last book in the ‘Darkened Love’ trilogy arriving to the shop today, it’s obviously going to be a good day.” Alina replies with a mischievous grin while slinking her arm through mine as we make our way towards the front door.
“Am I terrible for hoping we don’t get customers today so we can sit and read it undisturbed?” I laugh.
It’s our favourite series and we have been waiting a year for the final book to come out.
It’s your standard spicy, dark romance book with a happy ending and we love it.
The bookstore is my second home. I always read growing up and I love finding parts of myself in all the different characters I read.
Reading was an escape for me when I was being bullied in school, because no matter how bad my life was made by those girls, I was able to live a different life in the books I read.
It was as much of a comfort then as it was when I left Fred and a comfort I need again right now after the disaster I had last night and after waking up this morning remembering my phone screen got smashed up. So badly smashed up in fact that I can’t even use my phone properly.
“Hmmm how mad would Lisa really be if we just kept the closed sign up?” Alina laughs along with me as we make our way towards her car.
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Our drive to work consisted of what it does every day we make the drive across the city. Drinking our coffees, listening to our favourite guilty pleasure music which happens to be K-Pop, and singing along badly in a language we don’t even know.
This morning was slightly different however because Alina kept pausing the songs to give me all the details of yet another night in bed with Lev.
She has never talked about guys she hooked up with to this extent before, mostly because she never saw them again after the first night, but right now I know far too much about the pretty fuck boy that’s turning out to not be so fuck boyish as she’s continued giving me all the juicy details in-between customers coming into the shop.
“He wants to take me out for dinner tomorrow night. Do you think I should say yes?” She asks looking a like a deer caught in Lev’s full beam headlights.
She doesn’t do dates. She does one night stands and dirty hook ups and has been living her best life doing so.
“Why not? The guy seems to be obsessed with you, but just be careful. You still don’t know exactly how he’s managed to own a club at twenty four years of age. Actually…” I pause, turning to face her fully.
“Other than how good he is in bed, what do you know about him?”
“He’s six foot three, Russian, fights in some MMA thing and fucks like a champion. What else should I know?” My best friend actually says all that with a straight face. She’s going to give me a heart attack one of these days.
“While all that is great knowledge for a casual fling, I feel like you should maybe know a bit more about him before it goes further Ali. I just don’t want you getting hurt, or I don’t know, murdered maybe?”
“Okay so should I go for dinner with him then? You can give me a list of questions to ask him and I can find out everything you want to know about him mom.” She replies sarcastically. Just as I’m about to tell her to piss off we both see the UPS van pull up outside the shop.
“OMG ITS HERE!!” We scream excitedly together. The book delivery we have been waiting on since opening this morning is finally here and we rush outside to meet the driver to help bring in the boxes of copies, but he gets out of the van holding only a single box.
“Uhhh, Willow Miller?” He looks between us both.
“Yeah thats me?” I respond confused as hell. He hands me the box, gets back in his van and drives off. No boxes of books, just one small box that wouldn’t even have a single book in it.
“What did you order?” Alina asks behind me as we both make our way back into the shop. I set the box down on the counter and grab a pair of scissors to cut the tape off it.
“Nothing? Maybe my parents or Lisa have sent me another little something for my birthday and it’s arrived late.” I say unwrapping the packaging. When I’ve taken all the paper away I gasp.
“No fucking way…” Alina whispers in surprise beside me.
Fucking way, because staring back at me is a brand new, in perfect condition exact match of my phone that was smashed up last night.
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Pacing back and forth in our apartment gripping the new phone in my hand, I don’t know what to do. It’s ten thirty, Alina and I have been home for hours and have talked for I don’t know how long about whether I should text the only number that was already put into my contact list.
“You’re making me dizzy Wills. Just text him!” She says as I look at the number and the name its under for the thousandth time.
Dragna.
God how could his name match him so perfectly. He really is a hot, huge, unforgiving dragon of a man.
“Alina I can’t. I don’t know whether I’m taken back by his kindness, confused as to how he knew my full name and the address of where we worked, or angry as hell that he thinks he can just send me a new phone and I’ll grovel to him like a charity case.
Why else would he leave his number in here.
He obviously wants me to text or call him to say thank you. ”
Just as I’m about to go off on another rant, the phone dings. There was already a new sim card in it so nobody has this number to be able to text me.
“Willow if you don’t look at that phone right now and tell me big sexy dragon man has text you I swear to god I’m going to slap you.” Alina says jumping from the sofa and running over to me.
I feel a knot in my stomach. Surely he hasn’t actually text me. There’s no way the man who seemed irritated at the fact I exist, who has literally spoke a few sentences to me and only sent me a phone to save face has actually text me.
“You’re killing me girl. Please check your phone.” Alina continues beside me.
“I can’t Ali. I’m too freaked out, you do it.” I shove the phone into her hand and she looks down at it before shoving it back into my hands.
“It’s your phone! You do it!” She screeches back at me.
“I can’t!” I shout as I shove it back in her hand and this time it takes her all but two seconds of realising she’s now holding the phone again before turning it over, unlocking it and falling into the makeshift nook of our bay window reading the message.
Her eyes go wide and I feel like I’m going to throw up.
“Incase you ever need anything. Dragna.” She says in a mock Russian accent, absolutely swooning.
And just like that, I feel the air rush out of my lungs.