Blindsided Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Don’t start feeling sorry for him.”
    She didn’t feel sorry for Roman. Empathy was not the same as pity. She felt like an asshole.
    “I need to talk to him.”
    “And tell him what?”
    “I don’t know. I’ll figure it out.”
    “Don’t mess this up, Ash. This is your chance. He’s already shaky—now you go for the jugular.”
    Ashley pulled her arm out of Mitzi’s grip, seeing her intensity, her near-frenzy, in a way she never had before.
    The word Grandma always used about Mitzi was single-minded . She had a certainty, a strength of purpose, which Ashley fiercely admired because she didn’t possess it herself.
    But Mitzi could be blind about things, too. She’d been blind about Kirk for ten years—scorning his devotion and sleeping around, always looking for the right guy when she already had him.
    She could be rude, too, in her self-centeredness. That sex marathon last night—that had been rude. And taking Ashley out in the swamp while Roman was in the shower … not a move Grandma would have approved of.
    Grandma would have made sure Roman’s car had been towed by now. She’d have located a cutting torch and fed him and found him a fresh toothbrush, and if Ashley had argued with her, she would have said that hospitality was non-negotiable.
    But Grandma wasn’t here.
    “I’ll do my best,” Ashley said.
    She leaned down, scooped up Roman’s phone, and set out after him.
    She found him in his car. Sitting in the driver’s seat, hands in his lap, face completely empty.
    Ashley opened the passenger door and levered herself up. The car was insanely hot—a hundred degrees or more. She began to sweat instantly, but she pulled the door shut anyway. “Roman?”
    “What?”
    Completely toneless. He was really upset.
    “I’m sorry.”
    “Apology accepted.”
    “I should have warned you about the alligator. And I shouldn’t have gone off with Mitzi while you were in the shower. That was rude. And last night—”
    “It’s fine.”
    “It’s really not fine.”
    He turned to look at her. “We’re not friends, Ashley. I don’t have friends. It’s fine.”
    Nothing about him looked sad when he said it—not his eyes, not his face, not his beautiful mouth or his overabundant eyebrows. That was the part that made her want to cry.
    She handed him his phone.
    He opened the console between their seats, extracted a cord, and inserted it into the phone, then plugged the other end into the lighter. The wire curled and flopped unattractively in the gap between the phone and the console. Roman frowned at it, then looked away.
    With his right hand, he dug deep into his pants pocket. Suddenly, air began blasting from the vent in front of her, making her jump.
    “Remote starter,” he said.
    She blinked.
    “In my pocket.”
    “Oh. Right.”
    The air rapidly cooled. She cast around for something to say. “Did you get in touch with the tow-truck guy?”
    “I’m supposed to call him back.”
    “I can ask Mitzi about Jerry.”
    “Don’t put yourself out.”
    “Roman—”
    “Oh, knock it off.”
    “I can’t. I just want you to know how sorry I am about—”
    He flung his door open and hopped down from the car. Abruptly, the cool air cut out, and the car fell silent. Roman slammed his door shut.
    Ashley flung open her door and followed him out. “Where are you going?”
    But he was twenty feet away already, with his head down. She had to run to catch up. “Roman, where are you going ?”
    “Away from you.”
    “You can’t. I need to talk to you.”
    “I can’t talk to you right now.”
    But he had to. If not now, when?
    He would leave. He would leave, and she would lose her chance to make him see all the things she needed him to see. What Sunnyvale was all about. What her grandmother had meant to her.
    She would lose her chance to make him see her .
    “You don’t have a choice,” she said.
    “Don’t I?”
    He walked faster. He had longer legs, and he was in better shape, and she got a