AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Only when my heart stopped pounding did I gain enough control.
When I had it, I called my best friend.
This was something we definitely needed to talk about.
Right. Now.
Call me old-fashioned, but I like my men without wives, fiancées, and girlfriends.
—Maven’s secret thoughts
MAVEN
“Okay,” Athena sat down in the booth at our favorite coffee shop, The Roost, and said, “Tell me everything.”
I did, from start to finish, before either one of us had a single drink of coffee.
She stared at me with wide eyes and said, “That’s… insane.”
“I know!” I said.
“I can’t believe you actually asked him out.” She chuckled. “Who is this new Maven?”
“The new and improved Maven.” I giggled. “You’re right, though. I never would’ve done this before. But I’d had a really bad day yesterday, and though he was kind of quiet and grumpy the entire time we were fishing, he was sweet. He took my fish off for me. Baited my hook. Got me snacks. Walked around with me when I got bored. Offered to get an umbrella from the truck when it got a little too sunny for me to see my book on my phone. Heck, he even let me use his charging case for my phone.”
She blinked. “That’s why you did it, isn’t it? Because he let you read and didn’t complain.”
My face immediately went blank.
“It’s a good thing, Mave,” she said softly. “There’s not a single thing wrong with reading.”
I knew that.
She knew that.
But that didn’t stop the childhood trauma of my dad and brother giving me so much shit that I had to hide my books from them so they didn’t bully me relentlessly.
I looked away, my eyes taking in the coffee shop around us.
My gaze slid to the back corner booth where a group of men was gathering.
My eyes narrowed when I saw the familiar blond hair.
“Is that…”
“The asshole?” Athena guessed.
‘The asshole’ was Sheldon Greene.
Sheldon was my ex-boyfriend as of nine months ago.
He was a member of the SWAT team, my stepbrother’s best friend, and the man my dad had approved of and given permission for me to marry.
It’d taken me a while to see that my dad and brother had set me up with Sheldon for a purpose.
On Sheldon’s part, I didn’t think that he was aware of their manipulation.
I think he was so focused on getting a rise in rank, making the SWAT team, and getting all the ins he could that he didn’t much notice he was being strategically placed into a situation where we could find each other.
