I sighed and slumped in my chair. “No, he’s still amazing and hot.”
“If you’re expecting pity, you’re doing a shit job,” Charlottesaid, taking the plates to the kitchen.
“Just tell us what happened,” Rosalind demanded, bouncing in her chair.
I filled them in on the flirting, my desire not to have my career tank again and the fact that I can’t get him out of my head.
“Well, fuck him,” Charlotte said, pouring more wine into my glass.
“What? He didn’t do anything wrong,” I said defensively.
She shook her head. “Not fuck him, likefuck that guy is a jerk. I mean fuck him as in,fuck the awkward right out of the situation, you know? Have a pants-off dance-off. Do the horizontal macarena or whatever the saying is.”
I looked to Rosalind and Violetta and they both nodded their agreement.
I threw up my hands. “Your judgment is all impaired by too many orgasms with your Canadian hunks. I can’t sleep with him. We work together.”
“Technically, you already slept with him, so what does it matter?” Violetta pointed out. Even three glasses of wine in, she was still the poised one of the bunch.
“It matters because I can’t risk this job. This is a really good opportunity to get some experience outside of the realm of Huxley influence. How could I jeopardize that for great sex?”
“Ah ha, so the sex was great,” Charlotte said. “You wouldn’t even admit you two had been together before. Now, we’re getting the details. Dish, girl! Dish!”
I thunked my head back to rest against the back of the chair. “Fuck, it was so good. The man has artist hands and manual labor hands. Not to mention a really great di—”
“This is too much info,” Violetta said. “The man works for my boyfriend. I see him all the time. I don’t need to know aboutanything below the belt.”
“Oh, that is awkward. You don’t really need a detailed map of every cock vein,” Charlotte said to Violetta. “You can tell me the good stuff later.” She winked at me.
I slapped my hand over my mouth and stifled a giggle.
“Maybe it would be smart to get him out of your system. Just a one and done thing,” Rosalind said.
I frowned. “Did that work out for any of you?”
They all looked at each other and burst out laughing. “It’s hard to limit it to once a day, let alone once a lifetime,” Violetta said, a blush coloring her cheeks.
Charlotte nodded her agreement. “I hear you. Nick may be over forty, but if I put on the right lingerie, he’s good for a few rounds.”
“I really didn’t need to know that. Thank you, Charlotte.” I said.
She shrugged. “When you have an amazing man, you brag about him.”
“The difference is, I don’t have him and we work together. That is a complication I can’t get past.” My voice had taken on a whine.
“You’re right, our situations were different, just don’t dismiss the idea completely. Luke’s a good guy and you deserve a little stress relief,” Violetta said.
Their words stuck with me as I arrived at the shop the next day. The project for today was to hang all the frames on the wall. When I walked in, I was surprised to find Luke already hard at work. Not just hard at work, but he had a tape measure hanging from the pocket of his jeans. It was pulling them lower on his hips, revealing a little tease of flesh below the hem of his shirt. He had a screw gun in one hand and a pencil behind hisear. There was a bit of drywall dust in his hair, and my brain short-circuited.
He was hot on the mechanic calendar, flexing and covered in grease. He was hot when he was tattooing, intently focused on his art, but handyman Luke was giving me ideas. Ideas that involved him in nothing but a tool belt.
“Morning.” He smiled brightly, then his brows fell. “You okay?”
I nodded. “Yeah, no, just too much wine at girls’ night. The frames look great already.”
He looked back at his handiwork. He already had the first row in place and was just starting the second.
“I didn’t realize you were starting so early.”
