I crossed the room and threw myself at her. “Kiddo! You’re here—wait…how are you here?”
She pushed me away and made a show of smelling my breath. Gross.
“Ever heard of airplanes?”
“No, you dumbass. How are you here, like, inside.”
“Your porter is really sweet. Don’t get mad at him. I asked him not to warn you. I wanted to surprise you.”
“Consider me surprised.” Because if I didn’t know she was here, neither did Tanner.
Tanner
Tanner
A termite walks into a bar and says, “Is the bar tender here?”
Two guys walk into a bar. The third one ducked.
I should be working, but all I can think about is how your eyes glaze over just before you come. Or the curve of your ass and those two sexy-as-fuck dimples on your lower back.
I think I need some kind of treatment for this affliction. What do you recommend, Doctor?
Iforced myself to put my phone away, knowing he wouldn’t reply until later because he was working. But he always replied, which is what gave me the confidence to carry on sending him stupid bartender jokes.
Focusing on work was a challenge when every other thought I had was about Jax.
I wasn’t joking in my message. I was becoming so obsessed with Jax that I should probably be referred for treatment.
Addiction. That’s what it was. I was addicted to the person I was with Jax, the way he made me feel like I was the only person in the world he wanted to be with in that moment.
When I wasn’t having good feelings about Jax, I was worried about where we were headed. Did we have an expiration date? At what point did we move from friends with benefits to boyfriends? Would we ever?
It seemed we were doing all the things that felt right without giving them too much thought, and I was as guilty of it as he was.
A knock on the door made me jolt in my seat.
Words failed to form as I stared at Jodie leaning against the doorframe.
“Not gonna lie, when your bar guy said you were working in the office, I thought I would have a chance to meet your new man if you know what I mean.” She wiggled her brows.
I laughed and circled my desk to hold my best friend in my arms. It had been more than enough time since we’d last seen each other.
“Jodie. Oh my god, what are you doing here?” I twirled her as she wriggled in my hold. Jodie had always been petite, but since I’d grown taller and bigger, it was easier to do this to her. She secretly loved it.
“I did say I was thinking of visiting.”
I put her down and gave her a good head-to-toe look. “You haven’t mentioned anything since, so I figured you got busy. Come on, let’s sit on the couch. Do you want a coffee or something?”
She said yes, so I ran down to the bar and made coffee for us both. When I came back to the office, Jodie was sitting on top of my desk, her legs swinging as she looked at the photo of Jax and me at the Tamagotchi Con last month, holding Chip and Fry up for the camera.
“You two are such geeks,” she said.
That was the only thing Jodie and I never agreed on. She thought Tamagotchis were for kids and totally inferior to the computer games she excelled in.
I placed her cup on the desk and sat on the old couch I'd brought from the apartment when I bought my new one. “Does Jax know you’re here?”
She rolled her eyes. That meant yes. Why hadn’t Jax said something?
