Free The Sweetest Fling (A Stupid Cupid Book) by Amber Scott Page A

“I’ll be happy when we’re both on our last match.”
    Wow. Hurt much? She’d throw back words letting him know that made two of them, but his comment brought a new truth home. Once her sentence was over, so were they.
    Yeah, she always knew that. She’d just never let herself think it all the way through.
    No more matches also meant no more AJ. No more butterflies. No more wishing he’d kiss her. Who would ever make her feel like he did? Better yet, who would ever tolerate her like he did?
    Maybe matching Jace and Claire—er, Belinda, wasn’t such a big rush after all.
     
     
    * * *
     
     
     
     
    Pickled olives and sweat socks. The rotten taste in Jace’s mouth hardly compared to the rot in his guts. Saying good-bye to Bels had sucked. He’d hurt her. Jace found the right words, held her the right way, and assured her that he loved her. And all of it sat like poisonous lies. Rotten, filthy lies.
    Not even his spectacular hangover won out.
    The only place he wanted to go was the last place any woman he’d loved would look—except maybe one—his parents’ house. Jace pulled up the long driveway and already, the ache deep inside of him, a feeling so close to dread that he just couldn’t face his empty apartment or the idea of Bels in it with him, eased.
    He took a shaky breath from the car before getting out and going in. If he’d timed it right, dinner would be on the table. Tyler would be here, and maybe Davis, the oldest of the Fletcher clan, who was finally local again. If his timing were off, well, even his mom’s too-perceptive stare would suffice. He couldn’t be alone. Not now. Not after the night he’d had. Or the day.
    His world seemed backward, all of a sudden. His life, his head. His heart. And he needed someplace safe. To think. He needed to talk to Tyler. No. He definitely wasn’t going to tell him the truth of what happened today, but at least part of it. The Bels part. He’d know better than anyone how to handle a very sudden, very drastic, and very terrible change of heart. Tyler spoke breakups fluently.
    And if not how to handle it, maybe how to stop the pain.
    He had to stop something more. What else, he just couldn’t say yet.
    His shoes sank into the grass, and his keys jangled in the evening air among the crickets and birds. The citrus scent of the grapefruit tree and sounds of home comforted him as he trudged up the stone stairs and knocked hard. Two raps, and he turned the knob.
    “Jace,” his mom called. “Is that you?”
    “Yeah,” Jace called back, shutting the door and dropping his keys and cell phone on the coat bench. His twin’s voice carried over the din of dishes, chatter, and football.
    Jace paused a moment before joining the crowd, rubbing at the burn in his eyes. He couldn’t very well walk in all emotional, or his mother would pin him to the wall and have him spilling his heart out to them all. He couldn’t spill anything. Not yet, anyway. Not until he knew what needed spilling.
    Why’d it all have to go down yesterday? Seeing Claire on the same day he was supposed to announce moving in with Bels to his family?
    Planting a smile on his face, he walked in. The sun was lowering outside and bright shafts of light beamed through the kitchen blinds.
“There he is,” his mother said, embracing him and kissing his cheek. “And I knew it. I just knew it!”
“Knew what?”
“That you wouldn’t be able to resist coming here tonight. I know you better than you know yourself, my dear. Remember?”
    Yes, so he’d heard all his life. Better and longer, because that’s what mothers did. To his mother, he only smiled and rolled his eyes a bit.
    Tyler motioned him over. “Why did Mom know you were coming?” he asked, pulling out a chair for him as Cody, their nephew, clamored for a hug.
    “Where’s your daddy?” Jace asked Cody, the spitting image of Davis, right down to the dimples. When Cody didn’t answer, he directed the question to Tyler.
    “Davis has