When It Hooks You (It #1) (2 page)

Swooping her arms down into it, she scooped up fistfuls of crunchy leaves and tossed them into his face.

He swished them away with one hand, and she saw that the fury in his eyes had dampened to concern.
How dare he be concerned for me?
She lunged back toward the fountain and grabbed another load. This time she plunged her fists into the lapels of his wool jacket, smearing the dirt and crumbled leaves into it.

He grasped her forearms. “Sweetie, stop it.”

“No!” She stepped back and jerked her arms free. “You don’t get to call me
sweetie
anymore. You don’t get to call me anything.”

Spinning around, she stomped toward the archway, fending off thoughts of the false expectations she’d indulged in the last time she’d passed under it. The frigid crunch of his footsteps approached from behind.

“Don’t.” She didn’t turn but paused and held her hand up beside her. “The very least you can do is allow me a dramatic exit.”

“We still need to talk about this.”

“Not tonight.”

She resumed walking, and this time no crunching footsteps pursued. The bastard was actually letting her walk away—at least he’d done one thing right by her tonight. She traversed several blocks in a haze of indignant fury. She didn’t deserve to be blindsided like this no matter how much she’d hurt him before.

As she descended the steps to the Red Line train, her temper waned, but she wouldn’t let the tears set in yet. Not in front of all these people. She’d wait until she was back in the solitude of her apartment. The solitude she’d apparently be living in from now on.

How had she not seen this coming? Surely Kurt had shown signs of being involved with this other woman. He’d never been a good liar. Scanning her memory for a clue while the L train rattled toward Lincoln Park, she came up empty. She’d been too busy steeling herself for what she’d expected to be his impending proposal that she’d completely overlooked any forewarning he may have given her. Now there would be no proposal.

It was only because she knew Kurt so well that she didn’t try to convince herself this other woman was nothing more than a passing fancy and that in the light of the morning, without Trish in his bed, he’d realize his mistake and come running back. Kurt didn’t have passing fancies. Kurt didn’t make mistakes, not such big ones. That was one reason he’d taken Trish’s earlier rejection so hard—he hadn’t been able to forgive himself for being wrong about the timing. If Kurt had deliberately based this whole evening around breaking up with her, then things were really and truly over between them.

The train jerked to a halt at her station and she got out. The shadowy sidewalks and streets in her neighborhood were quieter than the area of the city where she’d ditched Kurt. It was like stepping into a different world. It would be okay to cry here, but no tears came.

Entering the stairwell to her vintage apartment building, it struck her how very different her future looked from when she’d last set foot on these worn steps. She’d expected to start packing up her things soon to combine them with Kurt’s at his place. She’d expected to say goodbye to her independent life here. Turning the key in the lock and swinging open the door to look upon the main room of her small, decidedly feminine home, she settled on a new emotion—not sadness or loneliness or betrayal. In one word, what she felt above all else was
freedom
.

Chapter 2

“S
OMETHING’S
W
RONG
W
ITH
M
E
,” Trish told her best friend, Lyssa, the following morning. “I’m pissed off and sad, but I don’t know, mostly I feel…elated. That’s weird, isn’t it? Shouldn’t I be wallowing?”

“I don’t know if you
should
be anything. This news is still fresh, You’re processing,” Lyssa said. At Trish’s request, she’d met her at Lincoln Park Zoo. With their mittens wrapped around extra-large cups of coffee, the two friends stood outside a cage of monkeys.

“Wouldn’t you wallow if Hayden dumped you for someone else?” Trish asked.

Lyssa’s eyes popped wide as if she’d just been slapped.

“See? You’re already a wreck at the mere the idea of it. Why am I so okay with this?”

Lyssa buried her neck deeper into her scarf. “Can we continue your psychoanalysis in a warmer climate?”

“Sure.” Trish led the way to the big-cat house where they leaned with their backs against the railing by an empty cage. Her eyes wandered across the wide, echoing hall of the 1912 building, landing on the tigers. “I have a theory.”

“Thought you might.”

“In the almost nine years we’ve known each other, for how much of that time do you think I’ve been sans boyfriend?”

Lyssa’s brow furrowed in thought, no doubt starting her review of Trish’s paramours with Ryan. He’d been Trish’s boyfriend in high school, and he’d maintained that title for a couple of months into freshman year of college, which was when Trish and Lyssa had first met. After that, Trish had gone from one relationship right to another.

“Probably not more than six months total, right?” Trish answered for her friend. “And who’s been the one to end the relationship almost every time?”

“You.”

“Think about it—what’s been the primary reason I’ve given to each and every guy I cut loose?”

Lyssa nodded, catching on. “Things were getting too serious.”

“Exactly. I don’t think I’m meant to spend the rest of my life with anyone. Last night, I was determined to say yes to Kurt, but right before I thought he was going to do it, when we were walking into the courtyard, I had a mini-freak. If he’d actually proposed, I very well might’ve turned him down again.”

Lyssa quirked a dark eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re not saying that as an ego-save to make yourself feel better?”

Trish shrugged and let out a sigh. “Maybe I’d have forced out a yes last night, but I’m not sure I’d have made it all the way to the wedding. I’d probably have bailed before the first bridal shower.” Inclining her head toward a cage across the way, she said, “Do you know tigers never settle down with one mate?”

“They have sister wives?”

“No. That’s lions. Tigers go from relationship to relationship and never commit.”

“So you want to be a like a tiger?”

“I
am
a tiger. After last night, I realize I’m totally, completely, utterly okay with never ever till-deathing with anyone. No, not just okay. I prefer it that way. I think Kurt saw that in me after I turned him down last year. He wasn’t able to shake his insecurity that I’d never be ready to commit to a life with him, and he was right.” She paused to take a long sip of her coffee, swallowing her new thoughts along with it. “I can’t change my stripes, so maybe it’s time I stop trying to be like everyone else.”

“So…what then? You’re giving up men?”

“Hell no. Tigers don’t give up having mates. They have a series of them.”

“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing?”

“I’ve been doing it wrong. I need to end the relationships sooner—before the guys can start to form any sort of long-term expectations.”

A lion busted out a roar, its mighty voice reverberating off thick stone walls and marble floors. Kids shrieked with delight at the power that had just rocked the building. Everyone except Trish and Lyssa moved closer to the king of beasts, with phones and cameras poised in hopes of another outburst.

Trish glanced at Lyssa, her mouth twisting into a knowing smirk. “See? He knows I’m right.”

Lyssa shook her head. “How will you know when to cut the guys off? When they get a certain look in their eyes?”

“Nah, it’s already too late at that point. It has to be before any real feelings can start to set in. What do you think—after the three date mark?”

Lyssa squinted toward the panthers, seeming to seriously consider the idea. Trish knew her friend hadn’t gone on any actual dates with her current boyfriend before falling in love with him. They’d been business partners and had taken the scenic route toward a romantic entanglement. “I guess that’s about right,” Lyssa finally said. “If you get to the third date and that goes well, you pretty much start setting up expectations for the longer term. That’s assuming men think like women, of course.”

“I want to curb my own expectations as well as theirs. So that settles it—no more fourth dates for me.”

“Ever?”

“Ever. This way I get to continue having a vibrant dating life without those pesky expectations getting in the way.”

“But you don’t sleep with guys until the relationship turns serious.”

“No, I don’t.”

“And you like sex.”

“Yes, I do. Very much.”

“And…” Lyssa pointed her index fingers at each other and spun them in opposite directions. “Are any dots connecting for you? Can ya see the problem here?”

“Hey, I was supportive of you when you gave up men to indulge in your vibrator fetish.”

“It wasn’t a fetish! And by the way, you were
not
supportive.”

Trish wrinkled her nose. “I was playing devil’s advocate.”

“Well, that’s what I’m doing now. But hey, you can work out the sex issue in whatever way you like. It’s just…make sure you think things through before you do anything you’ll regret.”

“Yes, Sister Mary Theresa.” Trish stuck out her tongue, but sincerely appreciated her friend looking out for her. It wasn’t exactly easy to be guarded about who she let into her bed without being judged as some kind of social freak, and she appreciated that Lyssa understood. “Being a virgin again might be kinda fun, actually.”

Lyssa let out a sarcastic chuff.

“Seriously. Don’t you miss those days of pushing it as far as you could without going all the way? Hot, heaving breaths and him pressing against you, desperate and powerful all at once. Your naughty bits tingling until they’re positively aching for him to—”

Lyssa nudged Trish with her shoulder. “Shush. There’s kids right there.”

Trish nudged her back. “Well…don’t you miss the unresolved sexual tension now that you and Hayden have moved beyond the titillating ‘how far will this go’ stage?”

“Not really.” Lyssa flushed an innocent shade of pink.

Trish pursed her lips. “That’s because you live in separate states. Your sex time is limited. Very smart of you to keep it that way before it becomes mundane.” Trish didn’t miss the way her friend’s eyes flicked away. “Besides, it’s not like I’m going to make myself sign a contract. I’ll be free to change my mind at any point. Though I expect I’ll quite enjoy being revirginated.” She took another gulp of her now cool coffee as a toast to her new resolution.

“I guess it doesn’t hurt to give it a shot,” Lyssa said.

Trish leaned farther back and examined her friend, whose gaze wandered toward the animals though she didn’t seem to be truly looking at them. It wasn’t like Lyssa to fold so quickly during one of their philosophical squabbles.

Lyssa’s eyes roved around the room for a few moments before she noticed Trish watching her. “What?”

“You tell me,” Trish said. “I may not be good at knowing exactly what’s on someone’s mind, but I know when there’s something to spill. So spill it—or will I have to string you up by your toes and dangle you over the lion’s den to get it out of you?”

Lyssa’s eyes narrowed. “You’re really creepy sometimes.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Waving a dismissive hand, Lyssa said, “It can wait. It’s a longshot, anyway.”

“What is?” Trish folded her arms and gave her friend a hard stare to let her know she was going to stay on her until she got that answer.

“Fine. I got accepted to the Boston University MBA program.”

“Congratulations!” Trish flailed her non-coffee-bearing arm and wrapped it around Lyssa’s shoulder. “So what’s the longshot, then?”

“The financing.”

“You’ll figure it out. You’re the finance major, after all. Hayden must be psycho excited that you’ll be moving out there.”

“No, no! You can’t breathe a word about this to him. He doesn’t even know I applied. I seriously don’t know if I can afford this, and I don’t want him jumping in to try to figure it out for me. If I’m meant to do this, I have to do it on my own.”

“Oh c’mon—you’ll at least shack up with him and let him cover the rent, won’t you?”

Lyssa’s mouth broke into a grin that was halfway between shy and Cheshire. “I suppose so.”

“Good girl. I mean
bad
girl.” Trish laughed and was surprised when Lyssa’s smile faded.

“I think I should be offended right now. I hadn’t expected you to be so happy that I might be leaving the Windy City.”

Pressing her lips together, Trish paused for a moment before saying, “Not gonna lie. This totally sucks for me. But you know I like to keep my glass half full—how else would I turn getting dumped by the love of my life into a new and improved dating plan? Under said new plan, it shouldn’t take me long to work my way through all the stallions in the Midwest—”

“Especially when they find out you’re revirginated.”

Trish flicked Lyssa’s arm and continued. “With you in Boston and me coming to visit, I can now add New England guys to my dating pool.”

“Plus you’ve got the West Coast available to you via Amy.”

“The whole friggin’ country.” Trish’s lips spread wide.

“Red, white, and blue-balled.”

Trish laughed. “Can we go get lunch now?”

“You got it, tiger.”

“Reow.”