Relentless Liberation Read Online Free PDF Page A

above the register
told her that she only had a few minutes left of her break. She didn’t want to
leave this odd conversation with no further knowledge as to who Tyler Serano
really was. It would be such a shame to have their acquaintance based on the
dull facts of her life. It was his turn.
    So she cut off his questioning. “Okay, it’s time for me to
get to know a little about you.”
    “Damn. I thought I could keep you talking your whole break.”
    “You almost did. I only have five minutes left.” She laughed.
    “So close.” He groaned, then flashed that lopsided smile.
“What do you wanna know?”
    She picked at the cardboard sleeve around her now-empty
coffee cup. She didn’t know when she’d get to talk to him like this again, so
she wanted to make this a good question. There were so many things about him
she wanted to know. She hoarded any information she could find on him, so she
supposed that her question didn’t have to be deep or soul-searching. She had to
start somewhere. “You said that reading was your third-favorite thing to do.
What are the top two?”
    He quirked a brow then considered her for a moment. “You
really wanna know?”
    She rolled her eyes. “I wouldn’t have asked you otherwise.”
    Once again he assessed her for a few moments before finally
coming to some sort of conclusion. “All right. The first two are fighting and
fucking. Not necessarily in that order.”
    For the second time in an hour, his bluntness had her sputtering
and she knew that her eyes were the size of the moon.
    He leaned forward with a concerned frown. “Breathe, Mina,
and please remember that you asked.”
    Finally she snapped her mouth shut and cleared her throat.
“You’re right, I did ask. I guess I just didn’t expect you to be so forthright.”
    Spreading his hands wide he grinned. “Despite your inability
to comprehend my so-called duality, I’m a pretty straightforward guy. What you
see is what you get. So I guess I should warn you if you really don’t wanna know
the answer to something, you probably just shouldn’t ask.”
    “Good to know for future reference.” She was almost certain,
though, that there was no future involving the two of them. “And on that
jarring note, I have to go back to work.”
    They stood together and he held the door to the coffee shop
open for her as they exited. A ghost of a smile hovered over her lips as she
shook her head and politely said thank you. He smirked down at her, seemingly knowing
what she was thinking but didn’t comment.
    “Thanks for the coffee,” she said as they stood in front of
the bookstore.
    “Anytime.”
    This conversation felt like déjà vu but she had to savor any
and all time spent with him. Again she found herself lingering, unwilling to
leave his presence.
    Again he pushed at her to go. “You better get in there
before you get fired,” he said. “I’ll see you around, Mina.”
    And with that he walked away, leaving her to reenter the
store in bemusement. What had been the point of that odd encounter? She didn’t
care what he claimed—the man was a conundrum. Well, she thought with a sigh,
she more than likely satisfied his random curiosity and whatever interest he
had in her to begin with had no doubt faded into the back of his mind.
    It didn’t stop her from fantasizing about him all through
the remainder of her shift. Work had never flown by so fast.

Chapter Three
     
    The following day, Mina awoke to discover that she had
virtually no food in her apartment. She groaned, knowing that a trip to the
grocery store was imminent. Especially when she discovered she was out of
coffee, and that shit just wasn’t going to fly this morning. She haphazardly
threw on some clothes and to the store she went.
    Steadily marking off all of the usual suspects on her
grocery list, she was about halfway through it when she spotted a familiar dark
head directly ahead of her in aisle five. For the third time that week, her
heart was suddenly