Try Me by Diane Alberts Page A

Jeremy Addison. The fool who’d confessed his love to her. The idiot who’d driven her away with his stupid mouth. She’d run before he’d even finished the you in I love you . It had been years, but she’d remember.
    And it would all go downhill from there.
    And five…four…three…two…
    “…Jeremy? Is that you?”
    “Yep,” he croaked. The only way this day could get worse was if her brother was in the car. Tommy. His ex-best friend. That would dropkick things from downhill to straight into the shitter pretty fast.
    Jeremy cleared his throat and tried to force something resembling a human voice past his lips. “Uh. How are you?”
    “How am I?” Her eyes widened. “How are you? What the hell happened? You look like a POW.”
    Her soft, cool hands pressed to his shoulders, then slid over him. He knew she was only checking for injuries, but his heart stumbled nonetheless. Maybe if his skin didn’t feel like an overcooked hot dog, he’d actually enjoy her touch.
    “I don’t remember,” he mumbled.
    What he really meant was I drank myself into a drunken stupor. And I think now I’ll go do it again, thank you. Go ahead and run away now. This time, I won’t blame you. And this time, he thought, he’d try tequila. Anything to erase the memory of humiliating himself in front of the girl he’d been in love with since the first grade.
    He sighed. “The last I remember, I was hanging around the Bellagio. Hadn’t even cracked my first beer.. Some Navy jackass called me out. Picked a fight with ten of his buddies. Next thing I know, I’m waking up with a mouthful of sand.”
    “How long have you been out here?” She felt his forehead. He could’ve told her without checking; he was running somewhere between fricasseed and hot as hell, Fahrenheit.
    He gritted his teeth. “No clue.”
    “Come on.” She slung an arm under his and gave him her shoulder. “In the car. You’re probably dehydrated. I have some bottled water.”
    He’d have laughed if it didn’t hurt so much. Jeremy had a good foot or more on Erica. She’d hit five foot one when they were eleven, and hadn’t grown an inch since. He still remembered her marking off her height on the doorframe of her family’s antique frame house, and finally giving up after it didn’t change for six straight months. Sad that he still remembered that—her pretty, slim fingers curled around the marker, the way she pouted.
    But he always remembered things like that. Story of his life.
    It was more stubbornness than strength that got him back on his feet. She wrapped her arm around his hips, as if she had even half a chance of supporting him. His heart gave a painful lurch, and his gut tightened. He ignored it. His body and heart never could be objective where Erica was concerned.
    She was only helping him, he told himself. Taking pity on him after finding him in a pathetic heap on the side of the road. She didn’t care about him. She hadn’t then. She didn’t now. She was just a good person…and to her, he was practically a stranger. Too many years had passed, and too much had changed.
    Including Jeremy.
    One grueling step at a time, they dragged back to her silver Porsche Cayenne. Of course she had a classy car. She’d always had the best taste in…well, everything. Probably why she’d never dated him, even after his confession. She’d never stoop so low as the son of a lowlife, no-account, good-for-nothing criminal. He couldn’t blame her. She deserved a prince, not a knuckleheaded piece of shit Marine.
    He still remembered the look on her face when he’d told her. She’d turned ghostly white, and her pretty little mouth had tightened. Then she’d run away. Just like that—run away from him as if he were diseased. He’d never been able to face her, after that. Her or her brother, after things had turned sour between them. Maybe it was better that way, but his self-esteem sure as hell didn’t agree.
    And his self-esteem wasn’t too happy