Flirting With Destiny: Aedyn Book 1

Chapter 12

Aedyn 

I checked my cell phone for any messages for the millionth time. It was late. Dark outside. My limo driver wasn't due to pick me up and take me to the airport just yet. I'd hired a private jet, but it was over in the capital city at least half an hour away. 

I slid back into the booth after saying good-bye to Lauren, disgusted with myself. What the hell was I thinking? I shouldn't have done that. I wanted to cut my hand off with a knife for reaching out to touch her when she said she had to go. I turned my head and stared out the window and into the dark summer night, drumming frustrated fingers on the table. 

 I should be sitting in my BMW, getting another blowjob from Raquel in Chicago right now, not here in this po-dunk town. I'd tried to make it through another visit without any disasters and now this. I was weak. I reached out and grabbed her by the wrist. I almost begged her to stay. No one should act that stupid in front of the one who ripped his heart to shreds. All these years, I regretted letting her get away, not pursuing what I really wanted. I had just rolled over and ran away, not man enough to fight for her. 

 And now, I'd allowed myself to lose control. Emotions resurfaced, the hurt and the love. It was all mixed up, flip flopping inside me, like someone was playing an evil trick, flipping a switch to one side and then the other, from feelings of hurt to feelings of hope. Back and forth, back and forth. My emotions wouldn't settle because... damn, the moment I touched her hand, my resolve was uprooted. One touch and a flash of fire shot through me. Just like that and by the way... how the fuck had that happened? I thought I'd put her out of my mind. It'd been years, then one chance meeting and I regressed back to acting like a star struck teenager. Fuck me. I'd better get a grip on myself. It wasn't beneficial for me to let down the walls. I'd done that once before and it brought nothing but heartache. Lauren was trouble back then and she's probably still a tease now. People didn't change. Maybe superficially, like getting rid of their glasses, but not their character. Why would I think it'd be any different now? 

I raked my hand through my hair, angry about my past and pissed at myself. I hated it. I spent years living in Chicago trying to erase it. Was it all for nothing? Small town people with small town minds. How had they helped me? A nice community to grow up in? Maybe, until high school, and those proverbial fuck-filled high school days. That may have been someone else's fond memories, but for me it had been a bunch of bullshit. At least it'd been for geeky guys like me. 

Except for Aunt Melissa, I didn't give a rat's ass about these people and this place. If they could see me now in Chicago, with my successful job, my downtown apartment, the women I attracted, hell.... I didn't need them, not even Lauren. 

She'd hurt me more than anyone else. She stomped on my heart like a bunch of grapes until it bled out every ounce of life I had in me. At a time in my life when I was incredibly vulnerable, she waltzed in like it was nothing and turned a young high school guy's heart into mush.

Damn, she was beautiful then and... fuck me, she was even more beautiful now. I remembered how she flipped her long blonde hair over her shoulder as she walked by me in the halls. Like a moron, I'd just stand there with my books in my arms and my back glued to my locker door, staring through my thick glasses. Then, when it came time for the annual science fair, Lauren asked me to be her partner on a project and I thought it meant something.  

She would come over to my house or I'd go to hers and we'd spent long hours working on it—probably more than a project of that caliber required—and I would sit close to her, close enough to smell her hair or brush against the smooth skin of her bare arm. She was a teenage boy's dream. In those days, even an accidental touch like that would send tingles racing through my body and my inexperienced, teenage dick would get all twitchy. It was crazy—uncontrollable at that age.