Read Online I Found You by Jane Lark - Free Book Online

round the park ain’t gonna break that boundary. You need to do something more exciting and reckless than that to start living on the wild side, Jason Macinlay.”
    He stuck his tongue out at me, which only gave me an urge to play tonsil hockey with him, but instead I returned to the bar and asked the manager if he wanted me to start cleaning up.
    When the other customers left, Jason went outside too. I told him where the backdoor was, and to wait for me there.
    He was standing there when I came out, and he smiled at me, a broad happy-to-see-you smile. The chef came out after me, looked at Jason and then winked at me. I screwed my face up at him.
    Jason’s hands were firmly in the pockets of his leather jacket and he wore the woolen hat that he’d loaned me last night. His breath came out into the dark night air as steam. It was way below freezing again. Certainly a bit chilly to be walking in a park, but I just fancied doing something with him. I’d enjoyed last night.
    I slotted my arm through his and hugged in tight to him, pretending it was for warmth; it wasn’t.
    We began walking, and to make conversation I started asking questions, what food do you like? What movies? What TV shows? It kept the conversation light and released some of the tension in my head, I needed to be talking and it meant I didn’t have to give him any details of my life, but I could get to know him better.
    We laughed, argued and debated, and in the park we walked down to the river, as I’d done earlier, but this time instead of looking at the water I looked at the Brooklyn Bridge, lit up against the night sky.
    “One of the things I miss most about home, is that you can easily drive out of town and into the dark, and when you’re in the dark, you can see millions of stars piercing the sky like pinpricks of light, it’s awesome. You can’t really see the stars here. All the city lights screen them out.”
    I couldn’t imagine what he was talking about. I’d always lived in cities. “I’ve never seen that. I suppose you and Lindy used to drive out of town and make out beneath the stars?”
    His hands were gripping the rail. He looked at me but didn’t turn. “Yeah.”
    “Romantic,” I said dryly looking away from him and down at the dark shifting water.
    “Yeah, our first time was out there.”
    My eyes shot back up to him. It was an honest thing for a man to say, and without any prompting. Where the hell had it come from?
    His eyes said he was remembering it. He wasn’t looking at me. He was looking across the river to Manhattan and the city, lost in time and lost in thought.
    I could tell from his expression his first time had been planned, and looked forward to, a momentous occasion designed to be fixed in his memory and cherished forever.
    Fuck, he really was small town. My first time had been quick and disappointing, a drunken fumble on a park bench. I’d only met the guy that night. I hadn’t thought myself in love. I’d just wanted to do what everyone else claimed they’d done. Afterwards I’d discovered most people had been lying and they hadn’t done it at all.
    I started laughing, which was definitely the wrong thing to do, but I couldn’t help myself.
    He let go of the rail and turned, looking at me, his eyebrows lifting.
    I tried to stop laughing, but didn’t succeed. The back of my hand lifted to my mouth to hide my mirth. “I’m sorry, I just can’t believe you’ve only ever slept with one woman … ” He hadn’t said it, but I just knew it was true.
    “I can’t see why that’s funny.”
    “It’s just… Well, it’s just… You amaze me… You’re so good-looking. The other night, when I met you, I assumed you’d left dozens of hearts broken in Oregon.”
    He gave me a broad smile, apparently not offended in the least. Then I realized what I’d done, I’d told him I thought him good-looking. Well, he was good-looking, he surely couldn’t be blind to it, yet I hadn’t noticed any vanity in