Razor Read Online Free PDF Page A

though it was subtle. The only comment she ever made was in passing, about Aaliyah being too fool to allow time to pass and taking what was available instead of waiting for the best fruits to ripen.
    But too much time had passed, hadn’t it? A sixteen year olds crush didn’t last forever. And what twenty-six year old man wanted a thirty-six year old woman? One with a divorce under her belt and a lot of emotional scars that existed, though she tried to keep them hidden.
    Yet Razor’s skin was warm and his touch solid, and so many of the things she adored still existed. Or was she fooling herself about that?
    “Why are you here, Razor? We’re not the same people. You can’t want what you did before I left.” Her voice was tired and worn, not what she intended, but it was the truth of everything in her shown steady in those words, that tone. She was too old for games, too exhausted to second-guess everything. She came home to simplify her life.
    “Why can’t I?
    “I was married!” Aaliyah pulled back, shaking her head against the softly spoken words. “I left you. I left everything.”
    “You never stopped thinking about me, though. I’m right, ain’t I?” He crowded her, circling her and reminding her of that last, long-ago meeting. “If you stopped thinking of me, our meeting today would have been easy and laughing. A couple calm words, a few sentences to catch up. Is that what happened?”
    No. It hadn’t been what happened, because she hadn’t ever truly let him go. He was always buried within her. No, she hadn’t thought of him every day, or even every week, but the tiniest remembrance of home always brought memories of him with it, and memories of him were always among her most cherished ones.
    “Are you saying you still thought about me?” The challenge was strong in her voice – anything to get him on the defensive, to make this sudden guilt go away.
    He laughed, gallows humor in the sound. “I never stopped thinking about you, Aaliyah. How could you think I would?”
    Because he was supposed to. Because he was a kid, and kid’s got over their crushes. “Razor, you have to know there was no way it could have gone anywhere.”
    The fight was gone from him in an instant, and he settled heavily on the couch. “I know,” he said, voice low. “I’m not mad about that. Honest, I know. It still hurt to lose you. You were the only one I could go to with everything.”
    Hesitantly, she sat on the edge of the couch, far away from him, a cat ready to leap at a moment’s notice. “You had Tank and Cage. I thought you’d be okay with them. And your dad…” Here she trailed off, unsure where to go with that.
    Razor’s dad had always been the sore point. She had done her best, and Doc assured her that Razor and his brothers would be taken care of, that their father wouldn’t be able to touch them anymore. When she left it had been over eight months since their father physically went after him, and she convinced herself that it would be okay, but she never verified it, never made sure. Guilt began clawing its way up her throat.
    “Steel’s dad made sure me and my brothers were okay. It wasn’t perfect, but dad never touched us again.”
    A surge of affection mixed with the guilt – not quite erasing it, but numbing the effects. Of course Razor knew what she was thinking, and as he always did, he sought to make her feel better.
    “You still have that mind-reading trick of yours.”
    “Maybe I just know you.” He breathed heavily, bringing in a deep breath. “I know my crush made things awkward for you those last months, but we were friends, weren’t we? I considered you my best friend.”
    He had been her best friend. Being with Razor had been wonderful and challenging and easy in a way that it was with no one else. It had delighted her, then it had scared her, and in the end, it was what helped convince her to run.
    As tough as this was, Aaliyah had to be honest with this, with Razor. She