Valentine Next Door by Willa Edwards Page B

Five
     
     
     
    Jeremy paced his mother’s kitchen as much as he could with his plaster-encased leg. “I don’t know what happened,” he sputtered into the phone, not caring that he’d screamed into his best friend’s ear. He didn’t care about much anymore. It had been a week since he’d heard from Miranda and he was going out of his mind.
    He’d had the most amazing night of his life, except for having to leave at four in the morning to be back in his bed before his mother came in to give him his morning pain pill. He would have liked to have stayed the night to wake up with Miranda in his arms, to make her breakfast, to help her get dressed. His cock throbbed with the idea, and the million others he’d concocted of Miranda since leaving her bed. But she’d been so insistent about his parents not finding him missing. Not wanting to worry them, he’d given in.
    He thought she’d had an amazing night too. He’d done everything he could to show her how special, cherished and beautiful she was. All the different emotions he’d felt for her for ten years. He’d thought she’d felt them too. Especially the last time on the kitchen counter when she’d looked up at him with those misty eyes. But if she had, why the hell hadn’t she returned any of his calls? Why hadn’t she come back over to see him or asked him to stop by? Being so close and unable to be with her made him want to jump out of his skin.
    Isn’t it doing the same to her?
    “We seemed to have such a great time. I thought she did too.”
    Brett sighed into the phone. This kind of conversation was not his specialty. “I don’t know, dude. Some girls are just like that. Hot one minute, cold the next. There’s no way to understand it.”
    Jeremy shook his head. It couldn’t be that simple. There had to be more to this. Miranda wasn’t one of those flighty girls who changed their minds all the time. She wouldn’t have let him into her bed if she didn’t want him there. So what had changed?
    His mind flashed back to that night in the kitchen, the sad look in her eyes when he’d returned after fetching a condom. The image haunted him, floating in his subconscious, tugging at him to remember, to understand. There’d been some other emotion there, something besides simply missing him like she’d said, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
    “Buddy, you got to give this one up. The girl clearly doesn’t want to see you.”
    Jeremy clenched his hands into fists, slamming them into his sides, not caring that he’d whacked the cellphone, held tightly in his right hand, against his cast. A pain reverberated up his leg.
    He put the phone back to his ear. “She’s not a girl. She’s a woman.”
    The most amazing, beautiful, fantastic woman he’d ever met.
    “Sorry.” Brett did sound regretful, but Jeremy doubted it was for calling Miranda a girl. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
    Jeremy blew out an exasperated breath. “I know, dude.” It wasn’t Brett’s fault he hadn’t slept more than three hours for the last six nights. He’d had some killer fantasies of Miranda before, but now that he’d seen her, touched and tasted her, the fantasies were a thousand times more intense. They kept him up long into the night, tempting him, torturing him.
    “I can’t give her up.” He couldn’t just walk away from her. Not even if that’s what she wanted. “I love her,” he released with a croak.
    “I know, dude. But you have to let her go. You called, you’ve left messages. There’s nothing more you can do.”
    There had to be something else. There had to be something he could say to convince her. He couldn’t live the rest of his life without her. He grabbed the edge of the counter, intending to turn back and pace the kitchen again, needing the support to balance while he pivoted on his injured leg.
    As he reached out, his hand knocked against a stack of mail piled on the counter. Three envelopes tumbled to the floor,