“I’m good,” I heard Gabe’s voice answer from where he was on the call in his office.
“Mr. Callahan?’
I slapped the desk phone to unmute it. “No, nothing!” I said a little more harshly than intended.
“Oh…o-okay?—”
I didn’t even wait before I ended the call, then immediately grabbed my suit jacket off the back of my chair and my keys from my desk before rushing toward my door and flinging it open.
I needed to get the hell out of here.
Annie glanced up from her desk, her brow furrowing when she looked at me. She parted her lips to speak, but I cut her off. “I’m leaving for the day.” I left it at that and kept moving.
I saw Gabe emerge from his office a moment later. His dark brows dipped in confusion and concern when he looked at me coming down the hall. “What’s wrong?”
“Paper clip hearts!” I shouted as I threw my hands up in frustration.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
I didn’t respond. I walked right by him and kept on going until I got to the lobby and pushed open the front doors.
When I got to my car, I didn’t waste a second before pullingout of the parking lot and onto the main road. I had a white-knuckle grip on my steering wheel as my mind jumbled with too many thoughts at once for me to even try and sort through while simultaneously concentrating on the road. I turned up the radio, trying to drown them out.
Once I arrived at my apartment, I walked inside and swung the door shut a little more aggressively than necessary before throwing my keys on the counter and stalking down the hall to my room. I tossed my suit jacket onto the accent chair in the corner, yanked my tie loose, then started on the buttons of my dress shirt, quickly stripping it off.
I was hot. Why was it so goddamn hot?
After trading my work clothes for a pair of black gym shorts, I began to pace in my room. “Okay…let’s be rational about this,” I mused, as though I didn’t just come from having a full-blown meltdown overpaper clipsand wasn’t currently talking to myself.
Those thoughts I’d barely been able to drown out with the radio in my car flooded me like a tsunami, and I laced my fingers at the back of my head with a groan. I was a grown-ass man, not a damn teenager. I shouldn’t be agonizing over a woman like this, but I couldn’t seem to help it.
I didn’t do feelings.
I didn’t get attached.
I didn’t want commitment.
There was nothing wrong with those choices. And I was content with them. I was content with my life and with how things were.
Then, Morgan happened, andeverythingchanged. She bore her way under my skin, carved out space in my heart, and I no longer knew where she ended and I began.
And the irony of it all is thatIdid this. I was the one who came up with the genius plan to make this deal with her. I was the one who approached her with the idea of us using each other simply for a release. But I never fathomed it turning intothis.
Every moment we had together since making our deal played through my head in a time-lapse as I tried to pinpoint precisely when these…feelingsstarted.
It wasn’t right away, that much I knew. Despite sleeping together, we barely got along in the beginning. It took a whole year for us to even admit that “hate” was perhaps too strong a word for us to continue using toward one another.
And then I realized it wasn’t one singular moment that made these feelings arise. It wasallof them. A slow building progression, stacked from the ground up, brick by brick, with every single little moment between us.
Judgment turned to acceptance.
The bickering and insults faded into playful banter.
The scowls turned into smiles.
Avoidance turned into unconsciously seeking her out.
And moments behind closed doors turned intomore. Deeper kisses. Lingering touches. Broken rules.
