Meant For Me Read Free

right to be an asshole to her. If I was going to play the game, I had to stick to the rules. And the rules were you pretended you weren’t just two random strangers getting each other off.
    Whatever.
    That was her response. But I knew that wouldn’t be the end of it. She wouldn’t be able to let it rest at that. By the time I’d gotten into the shower, washed my hair and body and stood under the spray letting it massage the knots out of my shoulders, and then climbed back out, dripping wet, she’d already texted again.
    When do you get back?
    Tuesday.
    Let me know if you want to hang out.
    K. I definitely do.
    Did I? I really didn’t know. I couldn’t remember a single word of conversation we’d had the night before. But it was the right thing to do, or so it seemed. It was polite or something, which was just stupid. Why did it matter?
    But it still did.
    As I walked into my kitchen with a towel around my waist, my hair sticking up damp in all directions from where I’d scrubbed it with the towel, my phone buzzed again.
    I do too. I had a lot of fun talking to you, you make me laugh.
    Then as if she’d immediately realized that was too emotional, too revealing, her next text was sexual. It was like a default setting we all chose when we were getting uncomfortable.
    And you make me come too. Haha.
    Good. I can make you come again.
    I know you can.
    I grabbed a soft drink out of the refrigerator and opened it. I drank half of it in one gulp.
    When I apparently didn’t answer Lila fast enough, she texted again.
    You like anal? I bet you could talk me into it.
    Suddenly I felt my stomach turn and it wasn’t from the cold carbonation hitting my gut after all the alcohol. It was because this girl, who was beautiful and most likely intelligent, thought she needed to dangle sexual carrots in front of me to hold my interest. And she was right. And that meant neither one of us had any business spending one fucking minute in each other’s company.
    We’ll see. I’m jumping in the car now to drive to my sister’s ttyl. Have a good weekend .
    That was as much as I could deal with Lila and the supposedly uncomplicated aspect of a hook up that was in fact totally complicated, soul sucking, and basically never worth it. For a few minutes of pleasure I got baggage, guilt, expectation. It was more than I could handle on a Saturday when I had to drive to Rockland and meet my baby niece. And see Caitlyn.
    Getting dressed I was almost glad I was finally going to see her again. It had been so long and I had thought about it so much, it was like this meeting had become the monster I was hiding from for so long I’d forgotten why it was scary. It couldn’t possibly be as horrible as I had built it up to be.
    Yet for whatever reason, after I got dressed, I opened my top dresser drawer and pulled out the ring box that was sitting in there behind my underwear. Flicking open the lid, I saw the diamond engagement ring that I had spitefully asked Caitlyn to return to me when we broke up.
    Snapping the box shut again, I shoved it into the pocket of my shorts, grabbed my keys, and left the apartment.

Chapter Two
    By the time I got to Rockland and boarded the ferry, my headache had receded but I was tired and hungry. The breeze was great though, and I sank down onto a bench out in the open air, grateful to close my eyes against the sun and relax a bit before being inundated with Aubrey’s enthusiasm. She had texted me a half dozen times in the last two hours. There were a couple of kids running around the ferry and I watched them, feeling pissed off at myself and annoyed at the world in general.
    It was just the post-alcohol crash. That high of the night before followed by the inevitable physical weariness and the thoughts of what the hell was I doing with my life? I wanted to stretch out full length on the bench and take a nap for the hour long ferry trip but a girl had sat down at the end of my row. Glancing over at her, I wondered how