You and Me Read Online Free
Author: Veronica Larsen
elevator comes to a stop and the doors open. She walks out between them, backward, keeping her eyes on me as I follow.
"Can't today. I need to pick up some supplies before I head off to birth babies. Castor oil, wool of bat, eye of Newt. Things like that. And also, I've already decided I don't like you."
"Really?"
We walk alongside each other to the front doors. Her coolness is a definite turn on, the way she seems completely unconcerned with whether my eyes are on her or not, or somehow completely unaware the sight of her sucks me in like a vortex.
I open the door for her. She thanks me and heads off down the sidewalk, the opposite direction from where I'm about to go.
"You're denying the inevitable, Samantha," I call out.
She stops and turns to glare at me. "The inevitable?"
"You can't keep up this act forever. You like me. You want to go out with me. Our chakras are drawn to each other. They ride the same elevator."
Her eyes narrow just slightly. "I suggest you take the path of least resistance."
"Oh yeah? What's that?"
She points in the opposite direction. "Away from me, pretty boy."
I stare after her as she walks off again, offering a mouth-watering view of her hips swaying to a natural, confident rhythm.
I'm smiling like an idiot, like I haven't just been turned down for the third time in just as many days. The aftereffects of her presence are the same as the energized rush of endorphins that flood me after a run. After surgery.
My life is hectic, but in the chaos, I find precision. I cut into delicate brain tissue to remove tumors, rebuild damaged pathways, on a daily basis. I approach everything in just about the same way. If there's an outcome I want, I move in the direction of it. I push, I walk, I crawl—whatever it takes to just keep moving in that same direction.
I see something I want right now. Someone I want.
Getting this woman to agree to one date can't be so hard.
I've never taken the path of least resistance, not once in my life. Samantha's a challenge and I'm one persistent son of a bitch.
CHAPTER THREE
Samantha
"DO YOU MIND IF I move this dead carcass over here?"
Grace passes by me in a flash of blonde hair, carrying a sunflower in a small clear vase. The flower's the only one remaining from the arrangement Jackson left for me a few days ago.
"Shut up," I say, half laughing into the glass of wine cradled between my hands, my prize after a long day of work.
She positions the flower in the center of our dining table. The yellow petals add a gorgeous pop of color to the otherwise worn, whitewashed wood. Sunflowers are my favorite, so wide-eyed and whimsical, bright and cheerful.
The truth is that I loved the flowers. I'd never seen an arrangement like the one he'd left. He must've put it together himself because it was strange and beautiful. None of the flowers matched, their wild colors competing for attention and reaching a sort of chaotic harmony. Like maybe these flowers didn't fit in anywhere else and were forced to form their own tribe, the tribe of misfits.
A feeling I'm all too familiar with.
"I know I've said this before, but this place is so swank," Grace says, stepping back to view the dining room appreciatively.
It's all courtesy of Delilah.
My sister's strange but beautiful furniture was scoured from thrift shops around the city. She has an eclectic style she wears like a cloak, draped around her to warn others that all who enter will encounter strangeness. And I love her for it.
On the continuum of crazy town, Grace errs on side of caution, Delilah leans toward the crazy, and I hover somewhere safely in the middle.
Or so I like to think.
"You're going to scare him off with your antics," Grace says, sitting down beside me. "He's going to think you're crazy. He's going to think you're Delilah."
She gets comfortable, folding her legs under her and grabbing a nearby quilt to cover her bottom half.
"I don't care."
The words fall flat, a
"Can't today. I need to pick up some supplies before I head off to birth babies. Castor oil, wool of bat, eye of Newt. Things like that. And also, I've already decided I don't like you."
"Really?"
We walk alongside each other to the front doors. Her coolness is a definite turn on, the way she seems completely unconcerned with whether my eyes are on her or not, or somehow completely unaware the sight of her sucks me in like a vortex.
I open the door for her. She thanks me and heads off down the sidewalk, the opposite direction from where I'm about to go.
"You're denying the inevitable, Samantha," I call out.
She stops and turns to glare at me. "The inevitable?"
"You can't keep up this act forever. You like me. You want to go out with me. Our chakras are drawn to each other. They ride the same elevator."
Her eyes narrow just slightly. "I suggest you take the path of least resistance."
"Oh yeah? What's that?"
She points in the opposite direction. "Away from me, pretty boy."
I stare after her as she walks off again, offering a mouth-watering view of her hips swaying to a natural, confident rhythm.
I'm smiling like an idiot, like I haven't just been turned down for the third time in just as many days. The aftereffects of her presence are the same as the energized rush of endorphins that flood me after a run. After surgery.
My life is hectic, but in the chaos, I find precision. I cut into delicate brain tissue to remove tumors, rebuild damaged pathways, on a daily basis. I approach everything in just about the same way. If there's an outcome I want, I move in the direction of it. I push, I walk, I crawl—whatever it takes to just keep moving in that same direction.
I see something I want right now. Someone I want.
Getting this woman to agree to one date can't be so hard.
I've never taken the path of least resistance, not once in my life. Samantha's a challenge and I'm one persistent son of a bitch.
CHAPTER THREE
Samantha
"DO YOU MIND IF I move this dead carcass over here?"
Grace passes by me in a flash of blonde hair, carrying a sunflower in a small clear vase. The flower's the only one remaining from the arrangement Jackson left for me a few days ago.
"Shut up," I say, half laughing into the glass of wine cradled between my hands, my prize after a long day of work.
She positions the flower in the center of our dining table. The yellow petals add a gorgeous pop of color to the otherwise worn, whitewashed wood. Sunflowers are my favorite, so wide-eyed and whimsical, bright and cheerful.
The truth is that I loved the flowers. I'd never seen an arrangement like the one he'd left. He must've put it together himself because it was strange and beautiful. None of the flowers matched, their wild colors competing for attention and reaching a sort of chaotic harmony. Like maybe these flowers didn't fit in anywhere else and were forced to form their own tribe, the tribe of misfits.
A feeling I'm all too familiar with.
"I know I've said this before, but this place is so swank," Grace says, stepping back to view the dining room appreciatively.
It's all courtesy of Delilah.
My sister's strange but beautiful furniture was scoured from thrift shops around the city. She has an eclectic style she wears like a cloak, draped around her to warn others that all who enter will encounter strangeness. And I love her for it.
On the continuum of crazy town, Grace errs on side of caution, Delilah leans toward the crazy, and I hover somewhere safely in the middle.
Or so I like to think.
"You're going to scare him off with your antics," Grace says, sitting down beside me. "He's going to think you're crazy. He's going to think you're Delilah."
She gets comfortable, folding her legs under her and grabbing a nearby quilt to cover her bottom half.
"I don't care."
The words fall flat, a
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