“I’m afraid.”
“Of what?” He rubbed my back.
“I don’t know.…Maybe because I loved Jared for so long, if I let him go, where does it leave me for all the past years? If it was all a lie, who am I?”
“Hopefully a smarter person who won’t fall for someone’s bullshit again.”
“I don’t know. I can’t trust myself. How can I? Besides, all this is premature because he doesn’t have my number, and he may not even show up at the group again.”
“Then you’ll find someone else. But see?” His eyes shone bright. “One meeting in, and you’re starting to feel something again. If it’s not this guy, it can be another.”
“And we’re back to it being simple like that, huh?” I smiled through blurred eyes, knowing he was right but feeling so lost and unsure.
“You’re gorgeous, run a successful business, and smart as hell. You deserve someone who’s going to love you. If you weren’t my best friend and didn’t know all my dirty secrets, I’d grab you up for myself.”
I burst out laughing. “What? Like you being the one who peed all over David Newman when we were playing Twister at his birthday party?”
“Bastard.” He smacked my ass lightly. “You promised you’d never bring that up again.”
“What are best friends for?” I smirked.
“Knowing everything and still standing by me. No matter what.” His blue eyes clouded, and I wondered if he still thought of Luca.
When Frisco was sixteen, he entered into an affair with his art teacher, Luca Esposito, a twenty-five-year-old man who came to his house to give him lessons. I tried to tell him it was wrong, that he was too young, but he was in the throes of his first sexual relationship and refused to come down from that high. Until one day he showed up at my house and asked if he could stay with me for a while, that his parents were going through a divorce and he couldn’t live with them anymore. I never heard him mention the art teacher again.
“That’s what happens when you’re friends with someone their whole life,” I said. “We know the good and the bad.”
His momentary pain forgotten, Frisco flashed me a grin. “You’ve had enough bad, baby. Time for some good. And if you want to see this guy again, you know his name, right?” At my nod, he pointed to the phone. “Call him. Take the first step.”
He left, and the rest of the afternoon his words kept running through my head. While I wasn’t sure I was ready to have a physical relationship with Nate, I didn’t like how we left things. At five, I picked up my phone and looked up the firm he’d said he worked for.
“Sherman, Morgan, and Weisbard, how may I direct your call?”
I chewed my lip for a second, wondering why my nerves skittered as if I were sixteen again. “May I speak to Nate Sherman, please?”
“Mr. Sherman is not in the office. I can direct you to his voice mail if you’d like.”
I was disappointed, yet at the same time I almost felt relieved that he wasn’t available. “No, no thanks.” I disconnected the call. “Well,” I said out loud to myself, “that’s that.”
It was time to close for the night, and I was tallying the day’s receipts when the bells at the door tinkled.
I glanced up, the words “We’re closed” on my lips, when Nate walked in.
“Hi.” His soft, wary gaze rested on me, as if he were afraid I’d kick him out. And yet I sensed something bright, almost hopeful in his eyes. In his dark-gray suit, crisp white shirt, and green-and-blue striped tie, he looked even more sophisticated and put together than last night. And I still wanted him as much as I did when his tongue was in my mouth and my hands clutched his hair.
“Uh, hi.” Why did being around Nate make me inarticulate and stupid? I forced myself to concentrate. “How did you know where I worked?”
His long-legged gait brought him to my side in three fluid steps, and I trembled at his closeness. Nate Sherman had woken up my body and whatever had gone into hiding in my heart, and yet I was afraid to allow it, uncertain I could trust myself or him.
“I remembered your name and where you said you worked.”
Like he did the previous night, he ran the tips of his fingers gently over my face, and my breathing quickened. Why did I turn into a puddle at his touch?
I stepped away from him and forced out a laugh that came out brittle. “You sound like a private detective, not a lawyer.”
That hawklike gaze held mine. “Sometimes we’re one and the same. And I can be very determined when I want something.”
“Oh.”
