Caught Up in You Read Online Free Page A

Just walk away and don’t look back.
    That was the MO. That is what has always kept me safe. Or more importantly, sane .
    It had worked for me so far. Why change it up now?
    But as I walked to my car, I thought about what I would have said to her. Had I been a different person. Had I wanted something else out of this life.
    I opened the car door and collapsed into the driver’s seat.
    “Open your eyes, Lia,” I said quietly to the empty car, “I’m right here.”
     

Five
    The call came the next morning. I didn’t recognize the number on the caller ID. A New York City phone number. I remember the time when 212 area codes used to excite me. It meant the possibility of an audition or a call back. But I hadn’t gotten a call from the city in years.
    Curiously, I answered.
    “Hello?”
    “Blake?”
    “Yeah.”
     The voice was familiar and yet not at the same time. Like an echo of someone I knew. Someone I had been pining after for the past few months.
    And I guess, in a way, it was.
    “It’s Alex Smart. Lia’s sister.”
    I actually pulled the phone away from my ear and stared at it. The way people do in the movies. It was just so unexpected. And my first reaction was that something had happened to Lia. She had been pretty drunk and pissed off last night. What if she’d been in some kind of accident? What if she’d gotten mad, jumped in the car, and drove off right off the road?
    “Is Lia okay?” I asked.
    There was a pause on the other end, as though she didn’t understand the question. And then she said, “I’m not calling about Lia.”
    “Okaaaay,” I said slowly. “How’d you get my number?”
    Don’t get me wrong. Alex was hot. And normally I knew better than to question a phone call like this. Hot girls just had a magic way of obtaining my number. I had started to think it was written on a bathroom wall somewhere.
    For a good time call Bartender Blake. He serves a mean martini and an unforgettable orgasm.
    Alex didn’t answer the question. In fact, I think she purposefully glossed over it. “I need to talk to you. Where do you live?”
    Well, it that wasn’t ballsy as shit, I don’t know what was.
    “Um,” I said with uncertainty. “What is this regarding?”
    I barely recognized myself. What the hell was I talking about?
    And since when did I use words like “regarding?”
    When a girl who looks like Alex Smart calls you and asks for your address. You give it to her, plain and simple. I’m not sure where my hesitation was stemming from. Maybe it was the way Lia talked about her sister—that undeniable feeling of inferiority that she felt around her. Or maybe it was the way I’d seen Lia act at the bar last night and the night Alex arrived. But for some reason, I found myself instantly distrusting her motives.
    “I…” she started to answer, but something was tripping her up. I had a feeling she wasn’t expecting me to challenge her request. I also had a feeling she wasn’t used to being challenged.
    “I…” she began again and I swore I heard a small sniffle.
    Was she crying ?
    My first thought was that she finally got a fucking clue and realized her fiancé was in love with her sister.
    “I just need to talk to someone,” she said, her voice warbled and slightly whiny. “I didn’t know who else to call.”
    Well, that was pretty twisted logic. She barely knew me from Adam.
    But sucker that I am, I caved. I told myself there was no harm in letting her stop by. I would just hear her out and then send her on her way.
    “Sure,” I said, reciting my home address into the phone.
    Looking back, that was probably my most idiotic decision of all.
     
     
     

Six
    Alex arrived fifteen minutes later. She looked fucking stunning in a pale yellow sundress that showed off her tanned skin and shapely legs. I’d have to have been pretty much dead not to react to those legs. Those breasts. That hair.
    I could understand why Lia felt so insecure when it came to her sister. They both had