Jane:It’s Jane. Do you have to wait to have sex after having a baby? Asking for a friend. An insanely, nervous jealous friend.
Megan: It’s usually a six-week wait, yes.
Megan: He won’t have sex with her.
Megan: I’ll kill him before he does.
I wantto ask if she sleeps in the same bed as Dex. But I can’t type out the words. Julia and I search my apartment for any kind of alcohol my father might have missed, but we find none. We do find a small joint Damian hid in a candle that sits on one of my shelves. I take a few puffs, but feel nothing. Julia gets high as fuck and tries to call Nate twenty-seven times.
He doesn’t answer her at all.
Chapter 20
My fingers tap away at my keyboard. I’ve been mindlessly writing since I got to the office at seven this morning. I’m on my second super-sized mammoth latte and my hands are moving faster than I can think up words. It actually feels like I’m hovering above my body, watching myself write.
I spot a gray hair.
“Oh my God, Jane. Jane!” Julia whisper-screams and pounds against our wall divider. “Dex. Dex is here.”
Dex?
I flinch at the sound of his name. An electric jolt snaps inside my body, tensing muscles and tightening my skin. I lift off my ass and pop my head up over the cubicles. My chair rolls out from underneath me and I lose my balance, dropping to the carpet with a quiet thud. I gasp out a low groan. My stupid traitorous seat barrels out of my workstation and collides into another one, then stutters to a stop and slowly spins.
Those things are lethal.
I grip the edge of my desk and pull myself back up. Nonchalantly, I look around for witnesses, but no one seems to be laughing and pointing in my direction, so I dust myself off and walk to my chair, quickly shoving it back where it belongs. It bumps into my desk, sending a stack of papers fluttering to the floor.
As I turn to try to catch them, I freeze, losing all ability to move. My arms are stretched out in front of me, papers flying out of reach, and my knees tingle and weaken.
Dex is standing at his desk, his eyes whipping up, locking onto mine.
My heart starts drumming faster, pulsing against my skin like it’s trying to break through.
A strange sense of relief overwhelms me just from him being here, coming into work. Seeing him. I smile, I can’t help but smile at him. My fingers tingle and twitch with a deep and sudden ache to touch him. I want to run to him, jump into his arms. I smile wider, thinking how it would feel, his body wrapping around me, his cologne filling my senses, his skin against my skin, his lips against mine. I bounce up on the balls of my feet ready to rush toward him, but then I remember what’s happened between us.
For a moment I almost forgot we’re not together anymore.
He advances on me, taking long quick strides. “Oh, damn. The pre-bone strut. Be careful, Jane. You might catch a dick,” Julia whispers as she peeks out.
“Shush,” I spit—like, literally, it’s all over my face—and I immediately have mobility once more and I’m wiping at my chin and mouth. I rip my gaze from his.
This is the most fucktangular situation ever. I’m a deer in headlights, and I don’t know which way to run. I’m sort of stuck in the middle of the maze of cubicles shifting from leg to leg. I must look like a deranged idiot.
Then Dex is there, right in front of me. Standing so close I can feel the heat of his skin and the sudden electric charge that zaps between the both of us. I focus down at his shoes.
“Jane.” His voice is a thick whisper that drives my gaze to lift to his. His cheeks darken. “How are things?”
I wince at his question, it’s like we’re friends who haven’t seen each other for years. He might as well start talking about the weather, or sports, or a ton of other things that demonstrate how far we’ve fallen from each other. “Fine,” I whisper.
He nods.
We stare at each other.
My fingers tighten into fists.
“Crazy weather, right?” He cocks his head. I can see he’s struggling to think of things to say. It’s like we’re strangers. Two people who have never shared a kiss or felt each other’s skin or fallen in love.
My eyes scrunch closed, and I shake my head as if agreeing about the mental state of weather. “Totally psycho.” I back away, one slow step at a time, until I’m inside my writing station and out of arm’s reach.
