So Much More (Made for Love #3) (4 page)

Aria is his girlfriend. She’s twenty-three, like me, and works as the office assistant at a veterinarian’s office. She’s got the most incredible complexion I’ve ever seen, her rich brown skin as smooth as freshly churned butter. I assume right away that she’s a ball of fun, mostly because of the naturally, wild, ringlets that bounce about her shoulders. I swear, her curls make my long, blonde, wavy locks jealous. When I tell her as much, she laughs and I get my second clue that she’s someone you can rely on to keep your spirits high. She laughs without abandon and I love it.

It only takes us about a half an hour to empty out the truck and unhitch my car. Aria offers to follow behind me in her vehicle so that I can return the truck and then ride back with her. Josh opts to stay behind as he has to be into work soon. I feel bad that I made him do a bunch of heavy lifting before heading to the gym. That is, until I watch him scoop Aria off her feet and into his arms to give her a big kiss goodbye. I try and convince myself that my dismissal of remorse is because he
obviously
has enough energy left in reserve to face the rest of his day;
not
because I’m jealous.

I’m not interested in men these days.

I force a smile as I wave at him from the truck and mentally kick myself for being such a snot. He’s really nice and it was very generous of him to help me this morning. He doesn’t deserve anything but my utmost gratitude—whether spoken or unspoken. Even so, when I allow myself to accept that it’s not the
man
I’m jealous of but the
love
he shares with his woman…

Ugh.
The bitch is acting up again and it takes a twenty minute drive dreaming of Maxton to get my heart back in check.

“H
EY, DO YOU WANT
to stop somewhere and get a fruit smoothie?” Aria asks as I climb into the passenger seat of her car. “I think we deserve it after all of our hard work on a Saturday morning,” she adds with a grin.

“Sure. Yeah—that sounds good.”

She nods before she shifts into first gear and begins to exit the parking lot. “So, you spent all morning asking questions about Josh and me but we didn’t really get a chance to ask you anything. How do you know Millie?”

“Uh, I don’t, really,” I admit with a shrug and a smirk, amused how much this day feels like moving into the dorms freshman year. “She’s a friend of a friend.”

“Oh, okay. Did you move up here for a job?”

I stifle a weary sigh. I know these are the kinds of questions I’m going to have to address for the next couple of months. I should have thought more about how best to answer them without simultaneously beating my heart with a hammer. “Not exactly. I just needed a change of scenery and I missed this place. I graduated from CSU a year ago and lived in Westminster for a while.”

“Gotcha. I can see why you’d miss it here. I’m originally from Nebraska. I came to CSU because of the veterinarian program and I fell in love with this place. Then I fell in love with Josh. There’s no way I’m leaving this town anytime soon.”

“Josh seems like a really great guy,” I admit, happy to steer the conversation away from me again.

“He’s the best. I know my opinion is completely bias, considering the man can make my pussy sing four times before breakfast, but it’s true.”

It takes a second for me to realize that I didn’t imagine her blatant admission of her obviously active and very satisfying sex life. As soon as it registers, I burst out laughing.

“A laugh. Just the response I was looking for,” she chuckles. “I think we’re going to be friends. Although, I’m completely serious about Josh.”

“About him being great in bed? Or about him being a great guy?” I ask with a grin.

“Both,” she says with a wink. “Honestly, though, he’s really sweet and he loves to help and he can fix
anything
. If you ever need him, don’t hesitate to come knocking. That is—unless you have your own beck-and-call guy…”

I think of Luke, because I can’t help it, and my heart gives me the finger.

For crying out loud—how many times do I have to apologize? If I’m not mistaken, it was
your
attachment to the man that made me go mad with love. You’re just as much to blame, here. So can we just move on already?

“Uh-oh. I struck a nerve,” says Aria, interrupting the argument between my heart and me.

“There’s no guy,” I stammer, tucking my hair behind my ears. “I mean, I’m single.”

She pauses for a beat before she gently asks, “Did he make your pussy sing?”

I want to laugh, I really do, but I can’t. The cheery sound gets trapped in my throat just as the tip of my nose starts to tingle—warning me that I’m on the brink of a big ugly cry. “I wish,” I whimper.

“So when you said you needed a change of scenery…?” I nod my reply to her implied assumption. “Do you want to talk about it?”

When I shake my head
no
, a tear spills down my cheek. I’m quick to swipe it away before I offer her a small smile. “Thanks, though.”

“Yeah, sure. If you ever want to talk, don’t hesitate to come knocking.” We pull up to our destination and she grins at me as she puts her car in park. “Come on. A bit of natural sweetness is always good for a pick-me-up. This place has an amazing berry-banana concoction that will blow your mind.”

There's a small line inside, but nothing to complain about, and I listen to Aria chat about how she got hooked on fruit smoothies. She does a marvelous job of sweeping away the remnants of my emotional moment back in the car, and I decide that she and Josh have a batch of oatmeal raisin cookies in their future.

“So, do you spend a lot of time with Millie?” I ask as we take our smoothies outside to sit at one of the patio tables.

“Ha! That would be a big, fat negatory.” I blanch at her response, suddenly worried about who I've just moved in with. “Sorry, that came out wrong,” Aria laughs. “I just mean that she's not exactly the socializing kind. She's really nice, I swear, but she's also really intense. About everything. Like teaching, for instance. She's insanely smart. If I wanted to know how to do calculus backwards, in my sleep, I'd ask her to teach me. She's passionate about sharing her brain—but sometimes she gets lost in her head, you know? Like, she's really distracted; and that's just Millie being Millie.

“We mostly chat in passing, which is how we found out about you moving in. Sometimes she'll need Josh's help with something. She also has a membership to the gym he works at, so we see her plenty. We just aren't besties or anything.”

“Does she have a boyfriend?” I ask, anxious to acquire as much intel as I can about my new roomie.

“She did for a while, back when Josh and I first moved in. We only met him a couple times before he stopped coming around.”

“Does she date?” I press, wondering just how anti-social Millie is.

Aria laughs. “I'm sure she does. She's easy on the eyes, even if she is a bit socially awkward. Don't worry, you'll be fine. She got along with Jess, her old roommate.”

“Do you know if she’s religious or spiritual?” I wonder, shifting gears as I down the smoothie that’s every bit as delicious as Aria promised.

“Like,
Sunday morning
spiritual? Or, like, Wiccan or some shit like that?”

Now it's my turn to laugh. “Like, Sunday morning spiritual.”

“Not sure. To be honest, Josh and I sort of have this tradition of staying in bed until at least noon most Sundays. It's the only day both of us are guaranteed to be off. I can't recall ever running into her with her dressed in her Sunday best.”

I nod, appreciative of all the insight Aria has been able to provide.

“Wait, are
you
Sunday spiritual?”

“I go to church, yeah.”

It's been a couple months, but I don't tell her that. Claire and Jack have never been big on God, so it wasn't like there was anyone around this summer to drag me.
Drag
being the operative word. My actions this year haven't exactly made me an upright Christian. I won't lie and say my heart and I haven't felt too full of shame to enter into God's presence. How do I answer for what I've done—or what I was thinking about doing? I've been avoiding God; a ridiculous notion, I know, but I don't know how to ask forgiveness for who I’ve become. I don’t know that I
want
to, either. Furthermore, I don’t know if I’ll ever be the same
Sarah
ever again. What that means for my relationship with God, I haven’t figured out yet.

“Hey, where'd you go?” she asks, nudging my knee with hers.

“Sorry,” I murmur, shaking my head clear.

“Is church a sore subject, too?” She lifts an eyebrow at me. “If I need to start making a list, I will.”

“No,” I say with a breathy, half-hearted laugh. “I grew up in a Christian home. I’m totally comfortable talking about it—or not, if that's not your thing.”

“I definitely believe there's
someone
up there.” She shrugs as she sips at her smoothie. “Anyway, what else should I know about you? What do you do for work?”

“Oh. Well. That's something I need to figure out.”

“What did you do in Westminster?”

“I—I taught elementary school. Third grade,” I admit, my heartbeat growing angry as I think about the box of school stuff that sits in my new room. School stuff that I might not ever use again.

“That's awesome! I bet the kids loved you. You've got that hot babysitter vibe going on. I’m sure the boys crushed on you like crazy while the little girls wanted to
be
you. Why don't you find a gig like that here?”

My nose starts to tingle again. “I, uh, I'm taking the year off. Maybe more, I don't know.”

For a moment, I'm in my parents’ living room—two days ago. The list of emotions I see in their facial expressions makes me want to curl up into a ball and cry.

Surprise.

Disappointment.

Frustration.

Confusion.

Anger.

Reproach.

I know that I've let them down with this move. They paid for my education and they were so proud of the teacher I had become. Now…now I don't know what the future holds. Their shock left no room for empathy and we're definitely in a rough place right now.

“O-
Kay
, I'll be adding
career choices
to the list of things to steer clear of.”

A mix between a laugh and a groan spills from my mouth. “Shit. I’m sorry. I’ve just got a lot on my mind. I’m usually not this awkward.”

“I believe you,” she says, nudging me with her knee once more. “Just remember you’ve got a couple friends next door, okay? Oh—give me your phone. I’ll give you our numbers.”

We trade phones and add each other to our lists of contacts. She gives me Josh’s number, too. I have to admit, I sort of love it that she knows it by heart.
Who knows phone numbers by heart these days?

On our way back to the apartment, she promises she’ll keep her ears open for any job opportunities she hears about. I haven’t had a chance to exchange more than a sentence or two with my new roommate, but I know that I love my neighbors. I’m so grateful that I’ve got them. One of the hardest things about moving is making new friends and it took less than five minutes for me to make two.

When we reach home, we go our separate ways, promising to meet up and hang out soon. I decide to spend the rest of the afternoon unpacking and getting settled. In a couple hours, I’m quite content with my progress. I manage to unpack all of my bathroom stuff. I’m happy to report that our bathroom is pretty huge. Not that I plan on spending very much time in there. I’m still not getting along with my reflection. She screams of my secrets and I’m not very fond of that. I already have my bitchy heart to contend with.

I also manage to fit all of my clothes in the closet. I don't think about the fact that half of my wardrobe consists of, what I’ve dubbed,
teacher dresses
; cute but functional. In fact, I’m so intent on emptying boxes that I hardly think of anything else accept the task at hand.

That is, until I come across the red coat.

That fucking red coat.

I don’t remember packing it. In fact, I don’t even know why I still have it. I should have burned it. The fucking red coat. A big, fat,
red
reminder of the most humiliating moment of my entire life. Wrapped in the once thought beautiful and admired trench coat, I’d never been more exposed or vulnerable. Not just physically, but emotionally too. In it, I had been bold, daring, and sexy. In it, I was every boy’s wet dream—I was
his
vixen.