Read Online Laina Turner - Presley Thurman 05 - Gems & Gunshots by Laina Turner - Free Book Online

hurt from walking all morning and the new shoes were giving me blisters. I was ready to give up and put something less painful on my feet for the rest of our walk. Fashionable or not.
    “What’s going on?” I exclaimed, rubbing my arm where she had grabbed it.
    “Shhhh. I don’t want them to see or hear us.”
    “Who?” I whispered, peeking out over the rack where I noticed Jill and some guy. A really handsome guy at that. “Jill and her boyfriend? But why—”
    “Never mind that now. Come on. We need to get out of here.”
    Jill and her boyfriend were coming toward us, so Haley started crawling down the aisle in the other direction and motioned for me to follow. I did, leaving my thoughts of comfortable walking behind with the rack cheap shoes, wondering what was going on that we were crawling through a store. One that didn’t have the cleanest floors, I might add. Though, since I didn’t usually crawl around on the floor I didn’t have a great frame of reference.
    Haley turned the corner to the next aisle and stood up slowly but just half way, motioning me to do the same. I saw that Jill was looking in the other direction.
    “C’mon,” she whispered and turned to scurry out of the store. I followed her, and when we turned the corner she slowed down.
    I finally caught my breath enough to ask, “What the hell was that all about?”
    “That was Jill and her boyfriend, Robert.”
    “So. I don’t get why we had to sneak out of there and leave me with blistered feet in these heels.”
    “I told you before we left that we would be walking a lot.”
    “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Explain why we are avoiding Jill.”
    Haley sighed. “A few weeks ago I went to this party given by a friend from school. I was having a good time just hanging out and talking to people. You know, your normal college party. I met this guy. We spent the night talking and were getting along so well, we spent the night together. I know what you’re thinking, and I promise I’m not normally a one–night stand kind of girl, but I am in college, so I figured why not? Plus I really liked this guy and thought he liked me, too. I thought we had some good chemistry. For a few days after we texted and talked on the phone a few times and I thought things were going well.” She paused.
    “I’m sensing a ‘but’ in here somewhere,” I said.
    “Not so much a ‘but.’ Rather an ‘until.’ Things were going well until Jill came in to the coffee shop on her break one day all excited about her new boyfriend and showed me a picture of him.”
    “No!” I exclaimed knowing what was coming next.
    “Oh, yes.” Haley nodded. “My guy and Jill’s boyfriend were one in the same. Apparently she had been dating him for months off and on and they just had cemented the boyfriend/girlfriend title the night before. That’s why she hadn’t said anything to me before then. Jill dates lots of guys and never talks about one specific one.”
    “What a coincidence that he’s dating your cousin. It sure is a small world. Brings a whole new meaning to six degrees of separation.”
    “No kidding. Anyway, Jill really likes this guy and she’s known him for a lot longer. I just don’t see any value to telling her and hurting her feelings unnecessarily.”
    “I agree. Did you tell him you knew?”
    “No. I just stopped returning his texts and calls and he finally stopped trying to contact me.”
    “You never know he might have been calling to tell you he was now in a committed relationship.”
    Haley shrugged. “True. I just don’t want to ever see either of them. Jill’s relationships don’t usually last to long. She gets bored easy and moves on. Hopefully that will happen in this case and lesson learned for me that I should ask more questions before I sleep with someone.”
    “Yeah make sure the guys you hook up with aren’t dating a relative.”
    Haley burst out laughing. Isn’t that the truth? C’mon. I know where there’s another store that will