Dream Spinner (Dream Team Book 3), Kristen Ashley [reading eggs books txt] 📗

I should go to the studio.

I should get some work done.

But that wasn’t helping like it used to.

Because if I didn’t have the guts to tell my father to take care of his own damned self …

And if I didn’t have the courage to say yes to a handsome guy when he asked me out, further not having the backbone to accept him as a friend when he gave up on me …

Last, if I didn’t even have it in me to lay it on my friends, or if not, just tell them to back off, I was dealing with my own issues, and instead, it felt like I was losing them, and it was me who was making that happen …

Then I wouldn’t (and didn’t) have the ability to boss up and do something with what I was creating in the studio.

So that was me all around.

Hattie Yates.

Failed dancer.

Failed daughter.

Failed friend.

Failed artist.

But really freaking good loner.

I parked at the back of the house where my and three other apartments were and let myself in the back door, thinking at least I had this.

My pad.

A weird, funky space, part of a big, old home broken in chunks. But the landlords wanted to make it cool, so they did, with up and down steps, insets in the walls to put knickknacks, interesting lighting, creamy white walls and beautifully refinished floors.

Mine was on the first level.

Living room and kitchen up front, a step up to the kitchen from the living room. A wall that was open, seeing as it was made up of open-backed shelves. Shelves in which there was a doorway with three steps down to delineate my bedroom area. That back area had a walk-in closet and biggish bath, which, no other word for it, was divine. And the only other room, what I was in now, a side area at the back that had a washer, dryer and some storage.

As décor, I’d gone with white and cream in furniture with dove-gray curtains. Some navy-and-cream throw rugs. Black-and-white art or photos in white frames.

I added to this only shocks of color here and there. In some pictures, one with a frame that was geranium pink.

Turquoise. Sky blue. Lime green. More pink.

And my prize possession, a loud beanbag in primary colors that was covered in a print of flowers that I used as a beanbag as well as an ottoman.

My funky little me space. Small. Light. Bright. Interesting.

All things that were not me.

With ease born of practice in that small, dark room lit only slightly by the waning sunlight of a Denver summer night, light that was coming through the single narrow window, I went up the three steps that should lead me to my living room/ kitchen.

And stopped dead when I got there.

Illuminated by the big wicker-globe-covered hanging fixtures, sitting back in my comfy, creamy armchair with his feet on my flowery beanbag, was Brett “Cisco” Rappaport.

The man who, a few months back, had kidnapped Evie, Ryn, Pepper and me—my friends, but also fellow dancers (except now Evie had quit and gone full time as an engineering student and computer tech).

Then he went on to kidnap Ryn again some weeks later.

He’d since been cleared of the crime he’d been framed for committing by two dirty cops who had killed another cop.

But still, not a good guy.

In my living room. “I’m irate with you,” he announced.

Okay …

Did I run?

I mean, he didn’t have any henchmen with guns trained on me this time.

So that was good.

But he didn’t even say “Hi” before he told me he was irate with me.

And he was nefarious, what with having henchmen and kidnapping women and all. I didn’t know what he did to make a living, but I didn’t think it was running an animal shelter.

“Um …” I started when he said no more and also didn’t move. “Why are you irate with me?”

“Because I saw that first dance. And the second one. Also the last. And Axl Pantera saw that first dance. And the second one. Also the last. I also saw the man nearly come out of his skin, beating back the need to charge you on the dance floor, carry you to his Jeep, take you to his house, and tie you down until you swore you’d never leave him, and here I am.” He extended an arm out to indicate my place while I fought to catch my breath after what he said. “Alone in your house with you, after you visited that waste of a space you call a dad. And where is Pantera?”

He leaned toward me.

I didn’t move.

“Not here.”

“Uh …he has a girlfriend,” I shared, deciding to get into that and not the information he knew I’d just come from my father’s, which freaked me out.

“He’s seein’ a woman. There’s a big difference.”

“I’m not sure after all this time she’d define it as that.”

“All this time … what? A few weeks?”

“More like a few months.”

He shook his head. “You women have way too many scruples.”

Yup.

Nefarious.

I took a chance and stepped another step into the room because I was less afraid of doing that than taking one the other way.

“Can I ask …I mean, no offense, truly, but it’s a little weird … so can I ask why you’re here talking to me about this?”

“Because you’re my girl and I gotta whip you women into shape.”

Erm.

What?

“I’m your girl?” I whispered.

His brows shot up. “Didn’t Ryn tell you?”

“Uh—”

“Yeah, you’re avoiding your friends. What is up with that?”

Okay.

Now, how did he know that?

“How much do you know about me?” I queried.

And, yup.

Still whispering.

“I look after what’s mine.”

“I’m not really yours.”

“Well, see, this is how it goes.”

He stopped talking, took his feet from my beanbag and stood.

I went completely still.

He crossed his arms on his chest.

And call me crazy (which on my next thought, I apparently was), but in my opinion, he was kind of cute.

In a bizarre, bad-guy kind of way.

And if indications were correct under that finely tailored suit, he had