Lying Hearts - Faleena Hopkins Page 0,2

now because I’m heartbroken. I really don’t feel like talking about her or the ring I still have to refund. Leave it alone, Mark. Just drop it. But he’s no mind reader.

He purses his lips and opens his stupid mouth anyway. “You okay?”

My eyebrows twist up the middle of my forehead and my eyes go ice-cold blue. “Are we going to have a moment? Should I break out a violin? She cheated on me. You saw it coming. I didn’t. I’m over it.”

“It ended two weeks ago.”

“It ended a year ago when she moved away. I just didn’t know it ended. So I had plenty of time to get over her, because she wasn’t really here anyway. You want me to cry on your shoulder?”

He concentrates on me and says nothing for an uncomfortable amount of time. I glare at him, challenging him to push the sword in deeper. Slowly, he brings his hand up and pats his own shoulder. “Come to papa. Let it all out.”

Smiling, I look away. “Shut it.” Sipping the end of my cold, weak, coffee while he picks up the paper to read the business section, I stare out the window some more. Passing locals soon blur me into a trance and a sneaky flash of not Sara, but Rebecca sleeping next to me last weekend in Mendocino, creeps in without my noticing. The way her hair fanned out in dark sheets on the pillow. How her mouth was open and the light sounds that came out of it. How one beautiful rosy nipple was exposed, laid bare thanks to a pushed-down corner of the quilt. A smile starts spreading on my lips.

Stop it, Brendan. I shove it back down in the depths of hell it came from. I know that she’s just like them all – she showed me that. I’d stared at her a little too long before I’d left, though. The moonlight from the windows made me stay.

Fuck! The old me is still clinging on like he wants me to get my heart crushed a few thousand more times before I learn. Well, screw that faster than a whore on prom night. I can’t take the kind of emptiness that comes from getting attached and having it not work out. Not again.

“You know what I think?”

Sucked into an interesting article, Mark doesn’t look up. “Mmm?”

“I think we’re going to make a good wing-man team. We cover both bases. I’m Black Irish, dark hair, and blue eyes. I’m normal height. You’re tall as a mountain and you’ve got that golden skin, hair and eyes thing going for you. Between the two of us, we offer whatever suits their taste. We can take it all, if we work together.”

Mark looks up halfway through my speech, very amused. After I finish, he says, “You’ve given this some thought.”

“Just now, yeah.” I lean back in the chair, legs spread out and my hand resting just below my crotch. “A blinding flash of inspiration comes when things are meant to be.”

Mark looks back at the paper. “I’m in.”

I stare, taking in his answer. Holy shit. It’s on! I’ve got the King Of Pussy to lead the way! A new life full of tits, ass, and zero commitment! I grab his newspaper with a big laugh. “We are going to kill it!” I crinkle it up in an extremely tight little wad and throw it at the ceiling.

Mark grins and slouches against the backrest. “I feel sorry for them already. You should move in with me, too.”

I didn’t see that coming. I lean back in my chair, cock my head to the side. “What about Greg?” Greg’s been Mark’s roommate all through college, the yin to Mark’s yang. Greg is quiet, introverted, serious. Not at all a ladies man, but Mark brought pretty women home and Greg was so happy about it, he never griped about the late hours or the sexual noises coming through the walls at all hours. “It seemed like the perfect scenario. Why give that up?”

“Greg’s moving in with Diana. Bought her a ring and everything.” Mark shakes his head. Marriage, the noose none of us want to fall into.

“Diana Cross? How’d they hook up?” Mark points a thumb at his chest. “Ah. Wow. Diana and Greg. I can’t really see it; Diana’s hot. Hey, wait… didn’t you hook up with her?”

“Oh yeah! Lots of times. But she wanted something I couldn’t give her.”

I smirk and scratch an itch on my chest. “Monogamy.”

“You got