The Last Superhero Read Online Free Page A

his
element and I can hear him gulping.
    “ I'm
fucking with you on that last part.” Although it would be nice.
“I don't even know why I'm telling you this.”
    He raises a hand, his brows
furrowing, his eyes focusing elsewhere. “Are you getting
evicted?”
    “ That's
a nice way to put it,” I snort. “Look. I like you. Apart
from the murder glares and the mind raping, I think you're an
interesting person. And I'm willing to listen to you all you want,
but I think we should lay down some rules when it comes to the
fantasy thing.”
    “ I
understand,” he says. “You fought against it today.”
    “ I
tried.”
    “ It
worked. That...” he strays. I hold his stare. “No one's
been able to do that to me before.”
    “ Well,
there's always a first for everything, isn't there? I don't know,
Steven, I have no idea how I did that.”
    “ It
was you who said that people don't meet at random. Maybe us meeting
wasn't a coincidence.”
    I look into his face and
can't help my heart reaching out to him.
    I want to think he needs to
get laid, bad, and that it is the only reason he's talking to me. Yet
he's so calm, cool, and collected. Maybe he won't say it, won't ask
for it. Maybe he needs a little encouragement.
    And I could use the
distraction.
    Am I really thinking this
through? Fuck that, just say it.
    “ Dinner.
My place. Tomorrow night.” He's about to protest, cut him
quick. “No excuses. I'll pick you up at your house at seven.”
    “ Giana...”
    “ I'm
not a bad cook.”
    Straight face.
    “ Okay.
The not-a-bad-cook part convinced me.”
    A smile. A gaze. Damn this
man and his sweet eyes, and those lips that curve up...
    Get a grip, goddammit, and
walk away before the moment spoils.

5

    I'm a bird inside the cage
of my car.
    That if birds smoke.
    This is my third cigarette
while waiting, parked three houses down from Steven's, for it to be
seven o'clock.
    I don't want to be early –
that's desperate.
    I don't want to be late –
that's rude.
    I want to be just on time.
    “ This
is crazy,” I mutter to myself.
    Of course it is. It's the
craziest thing I've done since the time that guy my mother wanted to
force me into dating invited me to some twice-removed cousin's house
in The Hamptons. I'd never seen so many drugs put together or horny
twenty-somethings. I stayed with the lesser crowd smoking pot and
lost sight of my date until the next day when I had to drag him from
under some blonde, shove him in the car, and drive him home.
    He was the son of this
writer that was the bomb back then. The moment I hailed a taxi after
leaving him sleeping inside his car in his father's driveway, I
thought I should be trying to date the writer, not the writer's brat.
    That was three years ago.
    This is now.
    And Steven's not a writer,
although he's right around the brat progenitor's age.
    Which translates to: old
enough to be my father.
    “ Fuck.”
Flick the cigarette butt.
    I promised myself that would
be the last one. For the night.
    Check the time on my phone.
I've got two minutes to chew enough gum to cover it up.
    Two minutes to wind down
from the hell the last twenty-eight hours have been.
    I've cleaned around the
apartment and managed to conjure one month of rent. Mr. Brownstone
wasn't happy. I'm only buying myself some time. His patience is
running thin and so is mine. And the accountant's, who I'm starting
to think enjoys waving those statements with red numbers at my face
and thrusting the word ‘bankruptcy’ into every
conversation.
    We all know the economy's
shit. I read blogs and magazines, but reading doesn't do a thing to
make it better. No, it makes it worse. Makes me feel worse and I
don't need that right now because it's time to spit out my gum and
drive up to that wall with the gate and the ivy.
    And the man who comes out
with the leather jacket, the dark gray jeans, and the striped scarf.
    UNF.
    I reach for the passenger
door and open it from the inside.
    “ Hey,”
I say.
    “ Hi,”
he says,