Love Far Away (A Spicy Contemporary Romance) Read Online Free PDF Page B

back into her sofa
cushions. “God, you are so lucky,” I said, looking around. “You have your own
place. You can do whatever you want whenever you want. If you want to sleep in
on the weekend, you can! You don’t have to make sure people have clean clothes
for school and lunches packed and all that. You can just do you.”
    “You need a break, girl,” said Megan. “You need to just get
away.”
    “I can’t,” I said. “I can’t just leave Henry and Olivia;
especially after Bradley tells them he’s divorcing me...they’ll think I’m
leaving them. I have a photo shoot lined up for next week. I can’t just take
off a moment’s notice.”
    “Yeah, I don’t mean leave everything and go to the airport
tomorrow,” said Megan. “But seriously. You need a trip away. Just forget him!
You were planning to go away with him anyway later this summer, just go by
yourself instead. Or we’ll take a girls trip. Blow off some steam. Light your
wedding pictures on fire.”
    “We can’t do that,” I said, horrified.
    “Why not? It’ll be cathartic,” said Megan. “We can have a
bonfire on a beach somewhere. Throw all his shit on the fire. Maybe we could go
to New Orleans. Or Miami. Or, like, the Virgin Islands or somewhere. No, I’m
serious. I really think we should do a trip somewhere. What do you think?
Vegas, that’s what we should do!”
    Just then Ashley and Becca showed up, laden down with
shopping bags full of ice cream and cookies and chocolate and wine. “Oh, Jules,
I’m so sorry,” said Becca as soon as they came in. She dropped her bags on the
floor and crossed the room to give me a hug. “I know you felt something was a
little bit off, but I never imagined he could do something like this to you.
What an absolute jerk!”
    Ashley pulled a bottle of wine out of a shopping bag and
picked up a wine glass from one of Megan’s side tables. “Can I just say
something?” she asked, pouring herself a big glass. “I’ve never liked that
asshole. No, I’m serious. I’ve never, ever liked him. He set off my
creep-o-meter. Even when we were in high school, he had this air to him that he
thought he was so much better than everyone else and that he was the specialist
snowflake there ever was. Everything was always about him. Remember when you
got the chance to travel to Washington DC for that public speaking competition?
Remember? He would go on about how proud he was of you, but you’d miss his
final soccer game and that made him sad. Remember that? He never asked you to
stay home but made you feel so guilty that you decided to not go on your own.
He manipulated you into not going! He wasn’t even any good at soccer, either,
even though he talked about it like he was. He’s always cared about himself
more than anybody else. No, I have never liked him.” She shook her head firmly.
“I have always kept my mouth shut because I love you , Jules, but believe
me when I say this is probably going to be the best thing that ever happened to
you.”
    I had to look down before I started to cry again. I didn’t
want to hear that, even if there was a slight ring of truth to some of the
things Ashley was saying. It was true; he had gotten so upset that I would miss
his final soccer game of his high school career to go to a public speaking
competition in Washington DC. I’d never been one for joining clubs and
activities, but I liked the confidence I got from making speeches. I’d felt on
top of the world when I found out I’d qualified for that event, but in the end
I’d chosen to be with Bradley. I remembered how he’d picked me up on the soccer
field and kissed me after our team had won the championship. Back then, to my
eighteen-year-old self, that kiss had been worth the competition I’d given up.
Now I couldn’t help but wonder what the experience in Washington DC could have
done for me, but it still hurt to hear Ashley say those things about him. I was
torn between wanting to defend him and picking up