Read Online Reach Me by J. L. Mac, Erin Roth - Free Book Online Page A

nods and the waiter disappears.
    “This looks great, but I’m not hungry,” I admit aloud.
    “You don’t have to eat if you don’t want.”
    “I’m sorry,” I whisper.
    “Don’t be. What is it that you want to do?” he asks easily.
    My attention drifts over to the view of the twinkling lights from the strip beneath us. An idea comes to me and I grab my cell phone. I don’t look up to confirm it but I’m sure Russ is staring at me. I can feel his intense green eyes on me.
    I type my text out and peek up at Russ before sending it.
    I guess I just want to talk to my friend . The one I’ve known for ten years .
    Russ’s phone buzzes in his breast pocket and he checks it. He smiles and begins typing on his phone.
    You can always talk to me. It’s me .
    His text reminds me so much of why I’ve secretly loved him all these years. He’s kind, and funny, and compassionate, and the perfect amount of pushy. I’ve loved how smart he is. I’ve loved his wit. I’ve loved how he has made it clear that he wants more from me but never made me feel pressured or uncomfortable.
    “Why me?” I ask, doing battle with my emotions again.
    “Why not you?”
    “Russ,” I say with a sigh, “I don’t feel like I belong to this kind of scene. I’m just me.”
    “And you’re enough. You’re more than enough. You always have been.” He stands abruptly, shoving his chair back from the table. He comes to me and pulls me to stand. I’m so close to him. Heat from his body warms the small space between us. His cologne seems to swirl in my brain, making things foggy. “Lindsay, you have no idea what you mean to me,” he says just loud enough for me to hear him.
    “I don’t belong.”
    “If that’s what you need, to feel like you belong, I’ll make you belong,” he insists. “What would make you belong?”
    “I—I don’t know. I’m just not special, you know? I don’t have expensive clothes or a nice car or even much food in my cabinets. You can do so much better than me,” I admit, mostly to myself.
    “Why have you kept talking to me all these years?” he demands.
    “What? I—well—I guess because I felt like I wanted you. I needed you to talk to. You’ve been a big part of my life.”
    “And you’ve been a big part of my life too.”
    “I feel like the man I’ve been chat friends with forever and the man I met in your office are polar opposites. How can that be, Russ?”
    “You’re right.”
    His admission feels like a hard punch to gut that has left me winded and gasping for air on the inside. I knew it! I knew that my Russ and Logan Barnett were two different men.
    “You agreed to give me thirty days to prove to you which of the two is the real me and that’s exactly what I intend to do. I’ll prove it to you, Linds. Let me prove it to you,” he pleads, more of a demand than a request.
    I nod my head and look down at my feet, not really knowing what else to say to him. He scares me so much. I’m afraid he’s really some asshole in a suit who squashes people under his thumb for a living and I’m worried I’ll discover that he’s this incredible man who has been my closest and dearest male friend for all these years. If he is the man that I’ve always known, then my heart stands no chance whatsoever. I’ll inevitably fall one hundred percent in love with him, putting my heart in jeopardy once again. The difference between that kind of heartbreak and the ones I’ve faced in the past is that a woman like me doesn’t land a man like Russ, fall in love, lose that man, and recover from it. I wouldn’t recover from that. Even the idea makes it difficult to breathe. If I lost him, I’d lose more than the man I’ve come to love, I’d be losing a person that is a cornerstone in my life. Without his support, his kind words, his presence in my life over the past ten years, I would’ve crumbled. The structure of my existence would be compromised and I fear that even gravity would be far too