I called out from work for two days and went into hiding.

I hid from my boss who was expecting my overdue rough draft that I was procrastinating to finish. I hid from Stuart who had left fifteen voicemails I hadn’t bothered to play. I hid from Brenda who had picked me up and peppered me with questions wanting to know who lived in the glass apartment building. And I hid from Melany, whose normal drama was the last thing I wanted to handle.

I even hid from myself because the weak female who was hurt over a man disappointed me in spades.

I would have loved to include Kean in the mix but his lack of attempted contact was nothing but a brutal slap of reality.

After two days of hiding I finally summoned enough courage to roll my butt off the couch and fling myself back into the adult world.

I decided to go for a run. Running had healing powers and following the weekend I had just experienced, I was in great need of some internal healing. Throwing on purple nylon running shorts with a white tank top over a black sports bra I tied on my running shoes and trekked two blocks to the park nearby.

And I began to run.

I started off slow then increased my speed, running like something that was going to end my existence was chasing me. I envisioned leaving my problems in a pile behind me withering on the ground as they gasped their last breath. My resilience grew with each step as my feet hit the pavement. I didn’t have a care in the world until I passed the four-mile marker and spotted a man selling roasted peanuts from a cart. The smell held a temptation that once again left me weak.

For fuck’s sake, I was easy. Thankfully, I had a twenty dollar bill in the pocket of my shorts.

With a warm bag of nuts clutched in my hand, I made my way to a park bench just off the edge of the graveled path facing the water. I cracked open a couple and tossed them into my mouth when a crowd of bushy tailed squirrels appeared. Flinging them a couple of the nuts, I laughed when they picked them up in their tiny hands and rapidly ate them.

Except for a lingering hollowness in my chest, I was feeling somewhat better. What weighed upon me the most was knowing my draft on Dr. Ass was incomplete since I had ripped it to shreds the last time I’d looked at it.

I sighed and chewed some more. Okay, so maybe somewhat better was incorrect. I was still pissed, confused, and hurt. I didn’t understand where I stood with Kean Bennett. It irked me that I had allowed him to constantly push and pull, back and forth. I would get an inkling that he felt something for me, then I got hit with the no commitment speech. He let me stay the night and treated me to several rounds of extremely hot sex and then he lost his temper and informed me I was a waste of his time. Knowing the man was making me seasick.

On top of all that, I still didn’t have a clue who tipped me off about his father. Based on the pressure Shawna was putting on me to include Kean’s personal information in my article and the encouragement I was getting from Stuart to add the incident from high school, I heavily suspected either one of them. But why be so secretive about it? If they knew all about him, why not just come out and include it in the magazine themselves? The only reasons I came up with were maybe they didn’t have all their facts straight or they were afraid of Kean.

My cell sang Melany’s theme song, fittingly scaring the squirrels who chittered loudly from where they were spread out around the bench. Answering it didn’t appeal to me but I had been avoiding her for a while now and felt obligated to pick up.

“Hey, Melany.” I threw another couple of shelled nuts into my mouth.

“If I didn’t know you better, Ciaran, I would think you are avoiding me,” Melany snapped.

I had been avoiding her my entire life but didn’t have the strength to get into that type of discussion over a long distance phone call.

“Guess what? Estaban took me scuba diving today. Me. Scuba diving, Ciaran,” she sang out.

“I thought the name of the guy you went with was Chris?” I asked, confused.

“You’re so self-absorbed. I told you Chris and I broke up last week when I ended up in Estaban’s hotel room and accidentally had sex with him. I don’t know why I bother sharing things with you when you only ever think of yourself.”

The news of Melany’s breakup and rapid reattachment halted my chewing. I was pretty sure she hadn’t mentioned it all because there was no way in hell I would have forgotten a tiny detail like that.

“How do you end up in the wrong hotel room and accidentally fall on a guy’s dick?”

“It wasn’t my fault. I got confused. All these rooms look the same and Estaban’s room was right next to the one Chris and I were in. That shit falls on the hotel. You know I would file a complaint but they honestly did me a favor,” Melany whined.

“I can’t believe you treated Chris like that after he paid for your trip to begin with. Do you know how wrong that is?”

Not wanting anymore nuts, I set the bag next to me on the bench and kicked a foot out to shoo away the squirrels who were creeping up closer than I was comfortable with.

“Ciaran, it’s no wonder you can’t find a real man. Estaban is wealthy. Like, really wealthy.”

I rolled my eyes and in my peripheral vision caught movement down the pathway.

A man was jogging shirtless while next to him a skinny platinum blonde kept his pace. I refused to look directly at them but I could tell the tiny, hot pink sports bra the woman had on was struggling to contain her supersized, bouncing chest. I giggled like an adolescent and wanted to turn to get a better look but didn’t want to seem like a creeper.

Biting my bottom lip so I wouldn’t burst out laughing, I continued to listen to Melany gloat over her luck. When the couple pounded closer I finally got a good look at them and instantly regretted it.

I knew that male muscular chest.

Keeping the cell phone pressed tightly to my ear I dropped my chin and said a silent prayer to become invisible. As I waited for them to pass the bench, my inner voice mercilessly shouted that this was the reason why I didn’t fall for men like Kean. They have no problem fucking you right out of your stilettos and discarding you like a piece of trash immediately afterwards in order to move on to someone else.

When Kean and the blonde finally passed where I sat, I hung up on Melany. Grabbing the nuts, I scrambled off the seat but unfortunately lost my grip. The bag slipped from my hand and nuts scattered onto the gravel pathway in front of my feet.

The squirrels went berserk. They sprang out from all directions jumping at my legs and made me lose my balance.

My body met the gravel with a painful thump.

The bastard rodents didn’t mind one bit. They swarmed around and over my legs as their number multiplied and their chittering became deafening. And they were hostile. I did the first thing that came to mind and screamed for my life. Tails twitching, they completely ignored my wailing as they continued to fight over the nuts I was sitting in. I screamed again.

“You might want to stop screaming before a park ranger accuses you of squirrel harassment,” Kean said from above me and the angry hoard.

Was there no one else in this whole damn park that could see my predicament? No one else who could hear me and come to my rescue? Did it have to be the ass I despised?

A squirrel scampered across my lap.

“Oh my God, will you please help me up. I’m scared to move,” I cried.

Kean laughed as he stepped around the fur balls closest to me. I hated him more for finding the situation funny. I eyed the fuzzy butts secretly hoping one with rabies would bite him on the ankle.

“I swear, Kean, if they bite me because you’re laughing, I’m holding you personally responsible for the damages to my body.”

Kean grumbled something I didn’t hear because I was too distracted by one fat squirrel who was pounding his tiny fists on his chest in some type of war dance just inches away from my arm. Meeting my widened eyes, the war squirrel twitched towards me. I was mid-scream when I was scooped from the ground and straight into Kean’s arms.

“Stop screaming, I’ve got you,” he said as he gathered me into his chest.

I promptly shut my mouth as I glared up at his face. Now that I had been rescued from my tormentors, I was back to disliking the impromptu hero.

“You can put me down,” I snapped.

Kean’s mouth stretched into a closed lip smile as he kept walking across the parking lot. When reached the passenger door of his Mercedes, he set my feet down.

“Don’t move,” he ordered, opening the car door.

Pushing against my left shoulder he forced me to sit sideways in the seat while my legs remained on the outside of the car. The new position gave me a good look at my legs. There was a large amount of blood trailing from both knees.

Kean squatted in front of me and reached around my butt, removing a black leather bag from the car floor. He unzipped the top and pulled out a package of antiseptic towelettes along with tweezers.

With his left hand he tapped the inside of my right thigh. “Your knees have pieces of gravel embedded under the skin. I’m going to use the tweezers to remove them and clean the area with the antiseptic wipes so your wounds don’t become infected.”

At the first touch of the tweezers, I whimpered.

Kean’s gaze shot up from the leg he was working on. He looked much more concerned than I liked so I scowled at him. I felt the need to prove to him that I was kickass brave but honestly I was a wuss when it came to blood.

Looking back down he said, “Your left leg is the better of the two. I’m more concerned with the right one.”

I checked out my right leg. Sure enough, there was a good size cut just under the knee.

Tears of humiliation leaked onto my face. Between seeing Kean with the bouncy boob stripper and being attacked by squirrels, I had lost the ability to hold myself together. I sniffled and swiped at my cheek with the back of my hand.

Finished with the left leg, Kean moved to the right one and removed gravel from the injured area first.

“I’m starting to think you enjoy picking fights,” he said dryly.

There was more truth to his comment than I would ever admit. “The squirrels started it.”

A sharp sting came from where he was working, which made me flinch.

“Stop moving,” he demanded.

I froze and stared at the top of his head.

This was all his fault. None of me would hurt if it hadn’t been for him, him and his stupid big-breasted running date.

The question that was driving me to the brink of madness fell off the edge of my tongue. “Who was the blonde?”

“A patient,” he quickly replied without meeting my eyes. His answer made me feel a thousand times worse. “Why? Are you jealous?”

I ran the back of my hand under my nose. I was aware he had a reputation for sleeping with patients but somewhere in my pathetic little heart, I had hoped I was important enough that he wouldn’t feel the need to do it again.

I had been wrong—so, so wrong. And he was a dick. A huge dick. A dick that tried to warn me but I fell all over him nonetheless. I should have stayed on the fucking couch. If I had, I would have never known he had already moved on. I occupied myself with a speck of dirt on my wrist.

Placing his hand behind my knee, Kean skimmed the tips of his fingers up my inner thigh making me break out all over in goose bumps.

“Ciaran, I asked if you were jealous?” he repeated.

Sniffling again, I searched my head for the best answer. Of course I was jealous. The truth was, my jealousy was so thick I could suffocate from the fumes but I didn’t want to admit that it mattered a ton how easily he had written me off.

I resolved to take a more roundabout approach with my reply. “Why would I be jealous? It’s not like you and I have a commitment to each other. We aren’t in a relationship. We aren’t even friends. I don’t even like you.” 

“So, you don’t care if I fucked her?” he asked.

Looking over his head at the water in the distance, I threw as much repulsion into my voice as I could muster. “I don’t care who you fuck just as much as you don’t care who I fuck. In fact, I had someone between my thighs last night,” I lied.

A strong burning sensation sent me yelping out of the seat. Kean’s hand slapped on my thigh and locked my butt back down against the leather.

“Kean, you’re hurting me,” I gasped.

“I’m not trying to hurt you. I trying to fucking help you but you probably shouldn’t lie to me while I’m holding an alcohol wipe.”

I glanced down at his hands. A bloodied piece of gauze was hovering right above my knee.

Guilt spread through me like a fire through dried grass. I hated lying.

“Yes. I’m jealous. Are you happy?”

“No, I’m not happy,” he sighed. “Ciaran, I didn’t fuck the blonde. She is a patient who I happened to run into while I was jogging. You really think I’m the type of asshole who would spend twelve hours with my mouth all over your body to toss you aside for someone else?”

“I’m not sure what to think anymore,” I admitted quietly.

Pulling a small tube from his bag, he applied some gel onto both knees. When he was done, he covered my cuts with bandages.

Patting my thigh, he stood and opened the door to the backseat removing a t-shirt which he dropped over his head.

“Is your car close?” he asked as he repacked his bag and placed it back on the car floor.

“No, I didn’t drive. I only live a couple of blocks from here so I walked.” I pulled myself out of the seat and almost fell backwards when the pain in my legs surged.

Kean reacted swiftly by placing a hand against my stomach to help steady my swaying body.

“Get in the car. I’ll drop you off so you don’t have to walk.”

“That’s okay. I’ll be fine. Besides, I don’t want to waste any of your precious time.” I couldn’t help it. I had to throw back his words from our last argument.

A shadow crossed his face. “I have never met someone so stubborn in my life. Get in the fucking car so I can drop you off,” he barked.

He looked hellbent on making sure I did what he said, so I quickly scooted back into the seat. Kean shut the door, walked around the car and climbed in behind the wheel.

I muttered directions to my apartment then promptly zipped my lips.

An awkward silence filled the air for a couple of minutes before he spoke again. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it when I said you were wasting my time. I was just pissed about your insistence to dig into a topic I’m not really open to discussing. Can you forgive me?”

“You just have a way of hurting me more than I’d like,” I responded, honestly.

He glanced at me but said nothing more.

All too soon we were pulling up to the curb in front of where I lived. I unbuckled my seat belt and reached for the handle of the door.

“Ciaran.” My name floated across the car with a tenderness I wasn’t used to.

When I faced him, his eyes reflected a hundred different emotions.

“You could never be a waste of my time.”

Blinking slowly, I explained what I was able to put into words. “I don’t understand what’s happening between us or if there is anything happening between us. I’m worried I will misunderstand what you want from me. And I’m not always sure what to say. I always seem to bump heads with you. I have so many questions and you’re so closed up. I’m supposed to write this article but I’m scared I will hurt you and you will hate me and I will hate myself.”

His eyes held me hostage. “That’s a lot of concerns for one person. I don’t think anyone has ever been afraid to hurt me before.”

“Kean, I’m so confused. I’m at a loss for what to say or do.”

Giving me a small smile he leaned over my lap, opened the glove compartment and pulled out his wallet. He removed a business card and handed it to me. “My cell number is on the back. Write your article and call me if you have any more questions. I only ask what I have been asking you from the beginning: Leave my personal life out of it. Please.”

I took the card from his hand, half relieved that he was straight out giving me permission to finish my assignment. But the questions about our relationship and where we stood had been neglected. A follow-up inquiry lingered on the edge of my tongue, but it would have to wait.

We’d both had enough for today.

Turning back to the door, I pulled it open.

Kean once again called my name. “Ciaran.”

I looked over my shoulder.

“I’ll try.”

My eyes wide, I stared at him for a full minute before climbing out of the car. I stepped away from the curb and watched as he merged into traffic.

I’ll try.

He’d left me with two of the simplest words in existence. I attached a life raft filled with every bit of hope to them and hung on for dear life.