Yeah, I need to erase Nate Cross from my brain.
I need to stay far away from him because falling out of love at first sight is going to be too hard if I don’t.
Chapter 7
I’m still in the office way after everyone leaves for the day. Almost everyone. Dex is the only other person here, but he doesn’t count as another human being to me, he’s more of a parasite. Both of us have stories due in the morning, but he’s spent the last hour watching porn on his phone while he writes. He might be doing it to get on my nerves, but I don’t pay it any mind.
My mind is too busy obsessing over Nate.
Nate, my friend Julia’s boyfriend. I have to keep saying it in my head.
I haven’t been able to focus on anything else. My daily word count hasn’t been hit, and I mistakenly sent out my grocery list instead of interview questions to the personal assistant of a fashion model I’m supposed to be writing a story about.
All throughout the day I’ve been bumping into walls or losing my pen, which was where I always keep it, jutting out of my messy bun.
I can’t stop thinking about what Nate said. Was he telling me that if I had found him at the game after our kiss, we would be together now? Would there have been no Julia and Nate? I roll it around in my head. Julia usually helps me interpret man-talk, or as I jokingly call it,Manglish. It’s the language that sounds exactly like English, but all the words and phrases have entirely different meanings, always leading to some disastrous communication between me and a random guy, who was most likely just trying to tell me I had something in my hair. This time I can’t go to her and I have no way of knowing what Nate was really thinking when he told me I should have run after the guy of my dreams: him.
I’m pacing in front of elevator, stockroom key dangling from my fingers. Back and forth, back and forth, wearing a hole in the carpeting that runs all along the hallway. Most of the lights are off and there’s just a small glow from the computer on my desk and the one on Dex’s. His fingers are clicking fast over his keys.
“I think you forgot to press the button.” Nate’s sudden voice surprises me and I whirl around, hand to my chest.
“Oh, you scared me. I thought I was the only one here besides Dex.” Nate is right; I never pushed the elevator button. How long have I been standing here waiting for the stupid elevator I never called to the floor?
“Art department is burning the midnight oil. We’re coming close to the deadline on next month’s cover and full page spread but the director hates everything the photographer shot.” He glides his fingers over the button and pushes down, it lights up with a ding.
“Yikes, it’s tough when the art director and photographer have two different ideas on how a story is supposed to be told visually.”
His gaze rests on my lips as his head bobs up and down.
The elevator door slides open, spilling the light from inside across the darkened office. He reaches out and cups his hands over the edge of the door, holding it open for me. “Are you leaving now?”
“In a bit.” I hold the stockroom key up and shrug. “Printer is out of ink, so I’m headed to the stockroom.” I step into the elevator and turn around.
Nate lets go of the door and shoves his hands in pockets. “I need a break, I’m going a bit stir crazy. You want company?” He slides his body into the lift before I can answer.
“Um. Sure.” My face and throat go hot and when the elevator starts to descend, I feel the sudden urge to faint or vomit, or both, but I thank God don’t.
Hordes of butterflies flutter through my stomach the closer we get to the supply room. We’ll be alone, Nate and I, in a room packed with so many things we’ll have to stand really close to each other.
I’ve seen a dozen porn movies with that exact scenario.
I practically leap out of the elevator when the doors open and rush ahead.
A chair at the door to the supply closet supports a towering pile of office supplies—reams of copy paper, file folders, index cards, and binders. We bump into it as we walk in and everything topples onto the floor.
We laugh and jump into the room, sealing ourselves inside.
“Doesn’t it feel naughty, doing something we aren’t supposed to?” he asks. “How did you get the golden stockroom keys?”
I giggle at his joke, and because his hand is on my elbow and his fingers are heating my skin. “Oh stop, the keys are always on Jessa’s desk.”
“Well, this place is like finding Oz, the art department isn’t allowed down here.” Our laughter dies away and both of us are standing in the middle of the messy stockroom, staring at one another.
His hand drops away from my elbow.
His eyes drift down. They’ve started at my lips and work their way south, ever so slowly, trailing over my neck and along my collarbone to the swell of my breasts beneath my tight fitted top.
My imagination roars to life. I picture myself opening my blouse slowly, twisting each button with a sexy flick of my fingers, then running them down along my cleavage. How would he react? Would he say,“We shouldn’t, but—”
