I follow her to the bathroom where I gently tap the door. “Olivia, I’ll make some fresh coffee and grab a shower after you, okay?”
There’s silence for a few long seconds and then she replies over the sound of the shower. “Yeah,” she says, and I am sure she’s crying.
“Shit,” I mutter to myself and realise my powers of self-restraint are better than I thought when I don’t break the door down to demand answers from her.
“Thank you,” she adds as I am about to leave her to shower alone.
“No problem,” I call through the door that physically and metaphorically is keeping me from her. “Olivia,” I say softly, “If I’ve done something—”
“No, no. Look Mason, please, just give me five minutes. I’m fine and you didn’t do anything, nothing bad anyway.”
I know she is attempting to reassure me and calm herself. I am relieved that it’s not me. I believe that, but the fact that she is locked away, crying after we’ve just had mind blowing sex concerns me and I will not be brushed off if this happens again.
By the time we’re both showered and dressed we have somehow managed to avoid speaking or seeing each other really. I pass Olivia a cup of coffee as she enters the kitchen dressed in a pair of figure-hugging jeans and a bright red hoodie that matches the red Converse on her feet.
“Thanks,” she whispers, risking a glance at me from beneath the curtain of dark hair that covers the side of her face. A deliberate move on her part I decide, something that will facilitate her hiding from me.
Suddenly she looks young and tired despite her efforts to cover her complexion with a little make-up.
“Promise me that if I can do anything you’ll say. To make you feel better. Not sex. I didn’t mean sex, although I like sex, with you,” I say and almost wish I hadn’t started speaking because I must sound more stupid to her than I do to myself.
“I’m fine. Things were intense, right?”
I nod but know that her mini meltdown was something beyond post coital weepiness. “Yes, but promise me and don’t try to feed me bullshit, please.” I add the pleasantry with sincerity but also because I need her to know that I’m being caring and considerate rather than bossy.
“Sorry. I promise.” She offers me a weak smile as her stomach lets out the loudest, rumbling growl I have ever heard making us both laugh.
“Come on, we can get some breakfast to start the day, yeah?”
“I would love that, thank you.”
She reaches for a small canvas bag that she wears across her body that distracts me briefly as the wide strap nestles diagonally between her breasts. I need to focus on something that doesn’t involve sex or her sublime body, if only for a little while.
We find one of those chain style pubs that does breakfast and while I half expect her to order a sandwich or something on toast, maybe even bagels and cream cheese which still seems a bit poncy to me, she doesn’t. She orders the full English with tea and fried bread and moreover, when it arrives, she tucks in like she hasn’t been fed for weeks.
“Breakfast was more necessary than I thought,” I comment with a smile as I eat my own breakfast, an identical one to hers.
“I was hungrier than I realised,” she admits with a flush to her skin making me metaphorically kick myself for embarrassing her. “I think you zapped my energy,” she adds, making me groan as I recall exactly how I zapped her energy.
“You might want to eat it all up then because I have a feeling I might be zapping it again later.”
Her eyes widen and her breathing hitches at the inference of my words. She is seriously beautiful when she is turned on.
“We should buy something for dinner. We’ll be needing a hearty meal to get through the night.”
“Tonight?” She sounds slightly unsure now.
“That was the plan, wasn’t it, the whole weekend?”
“I wasn’t sure, sorry. What are we doing Mason? This could be very complicated when it ends, especially if I am still working for you—”
“No,” I interrupt and hope that single word will stop her long enough for me to make sense of this, to decipher what happened from leaving her flat to being here. Maybe it was whatever triggered her solo shower in tears when the change and doubts began. “I thought we were exploring this, letting it play out. I thought we were going to see where this took us. Neither of us knows what is going to happen in the future, nobody does, and I can’t promise happy ever after or cottages in the country with roses round the door and a white picket fence but I can tell you that I have never known anything like this.” I wag my finger in the space between us.
“Me neither,” she seems to concede reluctantly.
“Then we’re agreed. We ride it out and see where it takes us. If it doesn’t work out then I promise I will not allow it to affect your career, not when it’s taken you so long to give Christian the kick in the arse ultimatum,” I say with a grin that makes her laugh.
“Well I hold you responsible for that.”
