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“Hey, Sissy. How are you?” I said cheerfully as my stomach churned from nerves.
“I’m busy, but you continue to call and don’t seem to understand that not all of us have bartender hours.”
I licked my lips and took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m sorry about calling. I just … well, I needed to speak with you. I was wondering if I could stay at your house for a few weeks. Just until I can find an affordable place to live.”
Silence. Not good.
I started pacing in the motel room that I couldn’t keep paying for while saving enough money for an apartment. Even working doubles several days a week, I wasn’t making enough to get my own place and save up for a car.
“What happened to the grocer’s son?” she asked tightly.
My ex-boyfriend’s father owned the Gabler Groceries chain. I had been with Wallace Gabler on and off since my senior year of high school. Then, four years ago, I moved in with him permanently. He talked marriage and forever. I was never sure that was what I wanted with him, but he was the only constant in my life. The one who loved me, and when I needed anyone, it was Wallace who was there.
Until two months ago, when I caught him cheating on me. I had no idea how long he’d been sleeping with his sister-in-law. But it had happened, and I had needed to see it. That had been the slap in the face to wake me up. Wallace was not my future. He had never been the one. He was just all I’d had.
“We broke up. I’ve, uh, been staying at a motel, but I need to save money so I can get my own place.”
She sighed. “Can’t you just make up with the Gabler boy?”
“He cheated on me,” I explained.
She muttered a curse. “How long are we talking?”
“A month?” I asked hopefully.
“Jesus Christ, Liberty. You are thirty-one years old. When are you going to become an adult? I didn’t go through all those years of college to take care of you because you chose not to get a degree.”
I bit down hard on my tongue to keep from responding to that.
Her mother had paid for her education. I hadn’t had that luxury, and I couldn’t afford it. I tried to get student loans but with no credit and no cosigner I couldn’t get approved. When Abilene kicked me out at eighteen, I couldn’t go to school and work enough hours that would pay for my housing, get me a car, and feed me. I’d used the bus, eaten little, and lived with four other roommates for almost two years and even then, I was barely making the payment plan the junior college had set up for me. I finally gave up.
“I’ll clean your house and stay out of your way. You won’t even know I’m there,” I assured her.
“Fine. I’ll be home about six. But one month, Liberty. That is it. I have a life, you know.”
I almost let out a sob as relief washed over me. “Thank you.”
She ended the call without another word, and I sank down on the end of the bed. Living with Sissy wouldn’t be easy, but I had survived worse, growing up with her mother. I could handle this until I had enough money put away to get my own place.
My suitcases were already packed, and the money I had tucked in my purse was my entire savings. One thousand six hundred and ten dollars. A month of not having to pay for this room, and I could get an apartment close to the bar. That way, I could save my bus money by walking and then be able to afford a car. I should have never let Wallace convince me to sell my car and use a company car. He’d gone on and on about how unsafe mine was and that it was bad for the environment. Like always, I did what he wanted. Somewhere along the way, it had become a pattern I hadn’t noticed I’d fallen into.
I dropped my gaze to my flat stomach and knew I didn’t have any other choice. I had to save money. This had to work. Things weren’t just about me anymore.
Standing back up, I took both my suitcases and rolled them to the door. Reaching for the knob, I glanced back at the bed. The night I had invited the biker named Liam inside after he gave me a ride after work six weeks ago changed my life.
I had been attracted to him the moment he sat down at the bar. He was everything Wallace wasn’t. He was tough, dangerous, sexy, and older. I liked all of that.
Then, after the ride back here, being pressed to his muscular back with his bike vibrating between my legs for twenty minutes, I was more turned on than I could ever remember being in my life. I had asked if wanted to come inside not expecting him to. When we walked into the room, he backed me up against the wall and claimed my mouth like he owned it.
The dirty words that came from his lips was a turn-on I hadn’t known I was missing. He seemed to be as hungry for it as I was. We had sex three times that night. It was incredible. I even lost count of my orgasms.
Wallace had never brought me to an orgasm during sex. He had always pumped a few times and groaned his release, then pulled out, taken off the condom, and gone to sleep.
Liam was nothing like that. He’d gone for hours.
I had used that memory to get myself off for weeks after hoping he’d walk back into the bar again. As the days passed and he didn’t return, I started realizing he wasn’t going to. I’d had a life full of disappointments. Liam was just one more to toss onto the mountain of others.
When my period was late, I didn’t think anything of it. I’d gotten off the pill when I left Wallace because it wasn’t something I could afford and I didn’t need it at the time. I figured it was messing with my cycle. Up until this week, when I woke up and ran to the bathroom to vomit. The nausea was gone by the time I had to go to work, and I chalked it up to something I had eaten the night before.
