Love Scars - 2: Deeper (5 page)

“Really?” I hate lying. Even about small stuff to people I don’t particularly like and who I’ll never see again. Bad karma. “I bought it from a guy on Craig’s list. He didn’t say where he got it.” Time to change the subject. “So I guess this is a real party house.”

“Last night was an aberration,” Frank said. “As you saw, Nora can’t take crowds. Wednesday’s just a few people over for the kid’s eighteenth.”

“Brad says Stacey is great.”

“Brad, huh.” Frank finished a cinnamon roll. “He’s one of Stacey’s favorites, ever since he showed her where the Easter eggs were on a couple of her videogames.”

“Sounds like Brad.” I detected a sliver of resentment in Frank’s tone, but he had no cause for jealousy. Lisa had made her choice. Frank won. He should be gracious about it. Like Brad.

But the dude was wrong. The best man didn’t win. Nora agreed with me, I realized. But Lisa’s opinion was the only one that counted. I hoisted the bike over my shoulder and opened the back door.

“Taking off then?” Frank said.

“Yeah,
gotta
go,” I said. “Things to do. Tell Nora and Lisa I said bye.”

It was shitty of me, as Nora might say
,
to run off without saying goodbye in
pereson
. Yeah, there was some self-loathing at the pit of my stomach. It was better this way, I told myself.

All the way down the driveway, I fantasized Nora running out of the house onto the front lawn to ask me to stay just a little longer. Long past the last of the lilacs, and even half a mile on, I heard her voice saying my name on the morning breeze.

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Coming next … Part 3: Stop.

J.D. has sworn never to see Nora again, but that doesn’t stop his feelings for her. Meanwhile, his friends-with-benefits relationship with Nicole takes a dangerous turn. For her part, Nora is resolved to push thoughts of J.D. out of her mind and her feelings for him out of her heart. It doesn’t help when her niece Stacey invites Brad to her birthday party—and Brad shows up with J.D.

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Love Scars – 3: Stop
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Love Scars – a new adult romance serial

Part 1:
Scratch

Part 2: Deeper

Part 3: Stop

Part 4: Exposed

Part 5: Cover

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