Imperfectly Real (A Series of Imperfections) by A.E. Woodward Read Free Book Online Page A

her skirt up farther allowing me to read the tiny block letters.
     

     
    Reading those words made me wonder how broken Elizabeth Sloan really was. Even though I didn’t have a fucking clue what it meant, I wondered what had happened to her? And more importantly, why was she risking it all to be with me?

 
     
     
     
    Tyler Johnston.
     
    The brother she never had. Hell, he was more of a sibling than Emma had ever been. Always watching out for her, making sure she was okay. But she wasn’t. In fact she couldn’t recall the last time she’d even been close to ‘okay’.
     
    She remembered looking up at him, complete and utter adoration in her eyes. He’d made her heart happy back then, and she was beginning to think he still did.

 
     
    By the time we finished we’d sobered up. Elizabeth pulled her shirt back on and let out a heavy sigh. The heat of the moment had seemingly caught up with us and with every tense minute that passed, the seriousness of the situation pressed harder down on us. I turned away from her and pulled my pants back up to my waist, fastening my belt. I looked over my shoulder as she pulled her skirt back down and attempted to smooth it out. Her hands pulled through her hair then ran over her wrinkled clothes again and again, as if she would somehow erase what had just happened. Eventually, the defeat overtook her and she shook her head before finally throwing herself back onto the toilet. Her eyes met mine as she bit her lower lip in an attempt to prevent it quivering.
    Tyler Johnston. The shithead.
    “Fucking hell.” I knelt down in front of her and gently placed my hands on her knees. I’d gone ahead and fucked things up royally … again. I was getting pretty good at it—better with age in fact. I’d always had the tendency to think with my dick, but this one seriously took the cake. Obviously I just didn’t know how to use my head when it came to Sloan women. “I’m sorry,” I continued as a tear streamed down her cheek. “I should’ve said no.”
    “I’m the one who should be sorry, Tyler,” she sighed. “That wasn’t fair of me. I put you in a position that I shouldn’t have. I used you, and you deserve better than that.”
    I stood there, slightly aghast. She’d said it. She’d told me the truth. I hadn’t expected that. Even though I’d made assumptions about what she was doing, the bluntness of her motivation still stung more than it should have. In fact, it downright hurt.
    Elizabeth threw her face into the palms of her hands and began to sob silently. We’d made a mess of an already precarious situation. I wanted to bail out of that bathroom in the worst way, but I couldn’t move. I just had to know what was going through her head and make it all right.
    “We made a mistake, Half-Pint,” I ventured. “Nobody has to know about this.” I placed my hands on the sides of her head and made her look at me. “Do you hear me? Nobody has to know. This doesn’t have to be the thing to break you. It can be our little secret,” I promised with a smile. “A small indiscretion in the big picture of life …”
    She wiped the tears from her cheeks and took a deep breath. “I just don’t want to hurt you,” she said coolly.
    “I’ll be fine. I promise.” I stood knowing that I was the last thing either of us should be worrying about. She had way more to lose from this than I could ever imagine. She had a husband. A kid. A life back in Maine. All of that could be ripped away from her, just because we’d let the heat of the moment get to us. From living with two lawyers I knew enough about the law to know that the courts would not take her infidelity lightly. I assured her that everything would be fine, even though I wasn’t so sure of it myself. But I truly believed that as long as we could pretend like nothing had ever happened, and forgo the awkwardness that usually followed a drunken indiscretion, no one would be any wiser.
    “It’s all good, we can do