I straighten my shoulders and stand tall as I approach the reception desk. It’s staffed by two people who are handing out clipboards and pens. Besides the noise they’re making, the rest of the room is silent.
After I whisper my name to one of the receptionists, he hands me a name tag, points to the only empty chair along the corridor, and asks me to sit, fill out the form, and wait for my name to be called.
I take my seat and scan the room. There are about twenty people in the waiting room, and another ten crammed with me in the corridor. Turns out I’m not the only desperate soul in the San Fernando Valley.
I start answering the standard questions on my clipboard when the unmistakable sound of Cardi B singing about her wet-ass pussy blasts out of my phone, through the entire corridor and into the waiting room. Shit. Why did I have a drunk female empowerment moment last night and change my standard ring tone to an actualsonglike some geriatric millennial?
All eyes turn to me.
I try not to make eye contact, but there is nowhere to look except at the people looking at me.
That’s when I seehim. I try to convince myself that I’m wrong. That it’s a hallucination caused by extreme embarrassment. But just when I think I’m imagining him, he runs his hand through his hair. His curls can’t be tamed. They flop back in place.
Oh, yeah. It’s him.
Xander Miller.
I feel like a freight train is barreling me back in time to Junior year at UCLA, where a chance meeting outside a frat party led to a friendship that ended in one night of pleasure. One night of extreme pleasure.
From his chair, Xander Miller’s lips tip up at the ends. Fuck. That can only mean one thing—he’s back in the memory with me.
Him, on top of me. His arms, caging me in. My teeth, scraping the skin of the small tattoo on his bicep.Later that night, I studied that tattoo in detail. A swallow.
Cute. Hot. Off the charts chemistry.
And now he’s sitting in the same room as me, an eyewitness to my mortification.
Fuck my life.
“Please make it stop,” says the woman sitting next to me, breaking into my trip down memory lane and reminding me that Cardi B is a certified freak and she isn’t afraid of letting the entire sleep study know.
“I’m trying.” Not hard enough, though, because I can’t resist another glance at Xander Miller.
There’s a huff from my seat neighbor before she gets up and leaves. As if sitting next to me is like admitting she’s an accomplice in disturbing the peace.
I pull out my keys, my wallet, my tampons—creating a pile of all my personal things for the world to see. I scoop my phone up and shut it off, but not before seeingMOMflash on the screen. I drop everything on my lap onto the floor with a loudclang.
With my phone finally off and the room returning to its uncomfortable silence, I bend over and start picking up my belongings.
My tampons have rolled underneath the plastic white seat next to me, which is now vacant. I’ve got my head between my legs when I see a pair of men’s black Chelsea boots step into my vision and turn on their heel, before taking the empty seat next to me. The space between us crackles, and I don’t need to look up to know who’s sitting next to me. The butterflies start to rally my entire body like a cheer squad shoutingS! E! X!and unable to tell the difference between a memoryfrom eleven years agoand reality. Get it together, Ash.
Without trying to draw any more attention to myself, I inch my body closer to Xander and his good taste in footwear, stretching my hand out in some geek attempt at trying to make inanimate objects move. The force is not with me.
“Here,” Xander says, his hand coming into view. I can’t help but notice how his actions have closed the distance between us. I can feel him all over me.
“Thanks,” I breathe out as I take my tampons out of his hand. Our fingertips brush and my cells are vibrating at the direct contact. It sets off an unwanted chain reaction of wanting.
I look up and finally get to take him in. Up close and personal.
His well-controlled mop of naturally thick brown hair hasn’t changed. There’s a new half-moon scar underneath the bottom left corner of his lip. Lips that were dragged all over my body at one point in time.
Stop doing that, Ash.
I finally look him in his eyes. They’re a sunburst hazel that glints with mischief. My whole body feels like shoddy electrical wiring. Him? Cool as a cucumber scent radiates from him.
“You’re drooling,” he says. Instinctively, my hand reaches for my lip like I’ve been caught giving my horny away. Ofcourse my lips. There is no drool. Fucker. I walked right into that one.
We hold eye contact for a moment. Now that I’m not ogling quite as much, I notice bags under his red-rimmed eyes. I’m betting Xander isn’t here as a control. He looks like he hasn’t slept well in weeks. A small part of me acknowledges that observationcouldwarrant some kindness on my part. But a larger part of me doesn’t care. That’s the rule. No dating. And definitely no feelings.
