Before Daylight. Andie J. Christopher

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ one dinner.” He smoothed a strand of hair behind her ear, almost feeling her heart skip with just that light touch. “I’d like to know a little bit about the woman I married.”

      “But no sex?”

      That almost sounded like a complaint, but he was going to let it go. He didn’t need to scare her off with the possibility that given some candlelight, delicious food, and his massive flirting ability, they wouldn’t be able to resist ending up naked and sweaty—and in a very real, very consummated marriage.

      He put two fingers up in a salute he remembered from the Boy Scouts. “Scout’s honor.”

      Her eyes narrowed into slits, and he had to bite his lip to stop from laughing when she said, “You were a Boy Scout? Shocking.”

      “Why’s that shocking?”

      “It just seems so—wholesome.”

      “I’m a very wholesome guy.”

      “Yeah, a wholesome guy who marries a strange woman and sticks his hand up her skirt at a wedding.”

      “Hey, you called yourself strange, and I’ve only ever done that once.”

      “You did a pretty good job with the hand/skirt thing for your first time.”

      It was his turn to blush. “You’ve given me enough shit. Agree to dinner.”

      “Fine. Sunday night.”

      It might be the least romantic night of the week, but he’d take it.

      Chapter 3

      “Abuela!!!!!”

      Laura’s yell echoed through her loft condo. She’d lived with roommates—other dancers—until recently, when Carla, Jonah, and the baby had moved to a house together. Carla had called her up one day, asked a criminally low price for the condo and popped the keys in her mail.

      A few days later, her grandma Lola had shown up with a suitcase and ensconced herself in the guest bedroom. Laura welcomed the time with her grandmother, who she hadn’t seen much growing up. She’d had a convenient excuse because it had been difficult until recently to travel to Cuba, which Lola had refused to leave for decades after her children and ex-husband had moved to the mainland. But even if the borders had been open, Laura wouldn’t have been able to spend school vacations in her ancestral homeland. She hadn’t had school vacations; she’d had ballet.

      Sometimes, when she returned home from rehearsal, she felt suffocated by Lola’s presence. They didn’t really know each other, and Lola had a big personality, the kind that swept a person up and set them down when it was good and done with them. Lola was like the twister from The Wizard of Oz. Except less predictable.

      But tonight, Laura’s condo was silent, and she was a bit a disappointed. If ever a girl needed her grandmother’s good counsel, it was when she’d accidentally gotten married to a dashing stranger at a tropical destination wedding.

      And then agreed to date him.

      From what Lola had told her about her past, which was way TMI, it seemed like precisely the kind of situation that Lola had gotten herself into and out of plenty of times over the years.

      Laura pulled one of her pre-cooked meals out of the fridge and turned the oven on to low heat. She’d hired a service to bring her nutritionally balanced, low-calorie food every week so she didn’t have to think about it. Everything in her life was like that—suited and engineered to the life she’d chosen for herself. Looking down at her sad three ounces of salmon and par-cooked broccoli—no oil, no salt, no flavor—she wondered if it was worth it.

      Seeing herself on that tape earlier, looking wild and carefree, was in stark contrast to how she’d felt later, at rehearsal. Dancing at her cousin’s wedding, she’d looked happy. Thinking back, that whole weekend—far away from the company—she’d felt free. Rehearsing a new production of Carmen, she’d been scolded multiple times regarding her face. Apparently, she’d looked too sad to be a believable destitute sex worker. Her face was telling the story of being burnt out, tired, and sore all the time. It wasn’t the kind of soreness she could shake off with a trip to the trainer, a massage, or even a frigid ice bath. It was the kind of soreness that told her she was approaching her sell-by date as a ballerina.

      She was hanging on by her fingernails, and part of her wanted to loosen her grip and just let go. Maybe she could teach ballet or be a receptionist for her uncle, Hector, while going back to school. She’d need time to figure out the rest of her life. The possibilities seemed frightening and exciting at the same time.

      She’d finished her meal by the time a key turned in the lock, announcing her grandmother’s return.

      “Where have you been?” She didn’t intend for her question to come out as sharply as it did. Her tiny grandmother stopped in her tracks. Everything about her screamed color, from her flamingo-pink Capri pants to her azure-colored off-the-shoulder T-shirt. If Laura wasn’t mistaken, there was pink in her hair.

      “Out.”

      “Out where?” Laura didn’t want her grandmother to feel like she was monitoring her, but she felt some responsibility for making sure her elderly relative stayed safe in a city she was just getting to know.

      “None of your business.” Lola certainly had the sullen teenager act down.

      “Did you know that I got married in Bali?”

      Her grandmother stopped in her tracks, literally froze in the middle of putting her purse down on the console table. The faint smile she’d had on her face while obscuring her whereabouts dropped, and her face took on an unmistakable mask of guilt.

      “So you did know.” A knot formed in Laura’s belly. The idea that members of her family had been complicit in this foolishness made her want to scream. Her brothers and her grandparents had all been there. One of them certainly could have stopped her. Or told her about it before her grandfather had the chance. “Abuela, why did no one tell me that I’d gotten married?”

      Lola had stepped fully into the dining area, and leaned against the back of the chair opposite to Laura’s. “How did you find out?”

      “Abuela!” Laura took a deep breath, trying not to lose her shit. The last thing she needed was to give her grandmother a heart attack. “Why did he know before I did?”

      “We were going to tell you, mi amor.”

      “When were you going to tell me?” Laura stood up to clear her plate, not wanting to look at Lola in that moment, but her grandmother followed her over to the sink.

      “When the time was right.”

      Laura tried to focus on the water rushing over her hands, the slippery texture of the dish soap. Whenever she was upset about something, it helped for her to focus on what was right in front of her. She’d always been like that. As a little kid, she’d been all over the place, kind of a wild child. Ballet had given her something to focus all that energy on, and taught her to be present.

      Right now, after finding out that her family had allowed her to make a colossal mistake, she felt like she was in a turn that had gone out of control. She was falling, and about to СКАЧАТЬ