Dust by Eva Everson (epub e reader .TXT) 📕

he was in too deep now, completely uncertain if he could live without her or not.

Not that they should have to. They could keep this up indefinitely. She’d graduate soon. Get a good job. Find her own place. He’d no longer be beholden to Ronald for the use of his place.

And then what, Professor?

The question came and went so quickly, he’d almost not heard its echo. But it was there. His life as a husband and father were set like the European silver epergne Mary Helen insisted on purchasing recently for their formal dining room table. His life with Cindie, however, balanced precariously near the edge of a cliff. Quick to fall. Quicker, still, to shatter.

Cindie

She thought she’d walk into an empty house—the little gingerbread she and her roommates had started renting over a year ago—grab her suitcase and be on the road within fifteen minutes. By now the early-evening Atlanta traffic had backed up along I-75, which meant stop-and-go for the next hour or so. Just the traffic between downtown and home had been bad enough. No doubt about it, her time spent with Patterson—not to mention the long nap afterward—had cost her. She’d arrive at Velma’s long after lights out. Probably endure the scathing stares of Vernon who always made her feel like he knew what she’d been up to these past two years.

Instead, when she jerked the front door open—it jammed from time to time—she found Kyle stretched out on the sofa, watching the console television Karen purchased in a congratulatory gesture to herself after she’d secured a job with Delta Airlines. “Oh,” Cindie exclaimed over the subdued tones of the news. The aroma of a half-eaten pizza wafted from the coffee table to where she now closed the door.

Kyle sat up, then scooted back on the sofa. “Sorry,” he said. “I thought you’d already left for home.”

Cindie wanted to remind him that this was home. That what she’d left behind—apart from her brother and sisters and, of course, Michelle—was no longer of any consequence to her. She had plans—new plans—and they included this little suburb of a great big city. “No,” she said. “I had to—to run by Connolly’s to pick up my paycheck.” The half-truth came so easily. Before meeting Patterson at the apartment, she had gone to Connolly’s where her doting professor had secured a job for her shortly after they’d begun seeing each other. Close enough to the apartment, he said. Perfect for making more time together.

Not to mention that Connolly’s required more clothing than her previous job. A notion that sent a smile to her heart. Patterson Thacker cared enough about her to keep her virtue intact. “I’m just here long enough to get my suitcase …”

Kyle chuckled. “You’ll never get out of Atlanta now,” he said, pointing to where the traffic report showed its usual Friday night fate. “May as well have a bite of pizza and wait it out.”

Cindie checked her diamond-face watch—a gift from Patterson—and frowned, knowing Kyle was right. She dropped her purse into a nearby chair before joining him on the armless sofa. “Shoot. I guess you’ve got a point.” She tore a piece of the nearly cold pizza from the pie before folding it in half and taking a bite.

“Want a Coke?” Kyle asked, now standing to his full six-feet-if-he-were-an-inch height.

She nodded at him before swallowing and taking another bite. An afternoon with Patterson had left her hungrier than she’d realized. Or was it more hungry?

Kyle went to the kitchen, then returned with two bottles of Coke and a couple of napkins. “What are you doing tonight?” she asked as he sat, handed her a drink, then a napkin.

He pointed to the television. “This.”

“No date?”

Cindie couldn’t say she knew Kyle all that well, so whether he had a steady or not was anyone’s guess. They’d been roommates for a couple of years, yes, but what she knew about him she could write in a small paragraph. Sure, he had dated some girl during their time at Dekalb—Lisa? Lila? Lydia?—but they’d parted ways as soon as they’d graduated. She’d gone back to wherever she came from and he’d gone to work in a bank in Tucker. Since then, Cindie couldn’t say. But he was a good-looking enough guy with dark-blond hair and caring eyes who made pretty good money, which made him a good catch. He also liked to go places. So far this year he’d been to Aspen followed by a quick trip to Orlando to check out Disney World. The year before he’d ventured into Canada to see their version of Niagara Falls, which he’d told her was prettier than the American side. She, in turn, suggested a trip such as that to Patterson, who’d only said he’d “see what he could do.”

“I’m having a Kyle weekend,” he said with a smile, his one and only dimple slicing into his left cheek. “Karen is flying the friendly skies to Chicago I think she said, and you’re supposed to be in—”

“I’m going,” she quipped around another bite of pizza.

“I know.” He rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands together. “I’m kidding. Anyway. My plan is to lie on this sofa all weekend. Watch some TV. Read a book … maybe. Take a couple of hundred naps. Work has been a pressure cooker lately and I need the quiet.”

Cindie shook her head. “You’re not going out at all?” She couldn’t imagine. Number one, this didn’t sound like Kyle, and, secondly, if she and Patterson were free to go out, she’d take advantage of every minute of their time together to explore Atlanta with him. Or Niagara Falls. Or anywhere, really.

He glanced at the front door. “Only to get the paper and—maybe—the mail.”

She laughed, then brushed the crumbs from her fingers into the pizza box and took a long swallow of her drink, keenly aware that he watched her as she placed the bottle to her lips. “Why is there nothing like pizza and Coke?”

“Because it’s