Women lately.
Couples.
Lord, it’s been a while since a fella last turned my head. And even then it didn’t feel like this. Certainly didn’t find myself hollow-bellied and full of fecking jitters before I met them for the first time.
Not the first time, boy.
I remind myself of this every day LeLionDuBois96 and the scheduling gods make me wait.Sixdays, to be precise. It’s Friday by the time we both have a free evening, and by then I’m as addicted to our message thread as I am the solitary photo he’s posted on his FlingIt profile. An abstract shot of his shoulder revealing nothing but smooth olive skin and a curve of muscle so artfully subtle I die every time I look at it.
Bet his inbox is jumping.
I’m also willing to bet he has no idea why. As in, no real understanding of how powerful that image is. How feckingalluring. At least, it is to me. And I’m a pretty basic human, something my best friend has no trouble reminding me on a regular basis.
“What’s up with you?”
The question is growled through my phone screen. Sounds kind of ferocious, but that’s Logan Halliwell if you don’t know him well enough to see he’s an absolute sweetheart. For the people he likes, anyway. And I’m blessed to be one of the privileged few.
“Nothing’s up.” I take him through my half-built house and upstairs to my bedroom. “Just having myself a tidy up. Fettling the fecking homestead. Making room for a Christmas tree.”
Logan narrows his gaze, peering closer at my surroundings through the video call. “You only tidy up when you’re getting some.”
“Not true.”
“Yes, it is.”
“No, it isn’t. You haven’t been around me since I’ve livedhere, in this house. I’m a changed man, and you know I never bring anyone upstairs.”
“That couch needs burning,” Logan grunts, giving me a look that lets me know he smells bullshit and he’s cutely concerned about it.
Kinda love it.
Mostly hate it.
He’s been looking at me like that since I nearly died in a sooty mess at his feet, and I’m wondering what it’ll take for him to stop. To make him remember he got hurt in that fire too, so it’s not just him who gets to skewer people through a phone screen.
Also, I’m really not picking up my junk because I think I’m getting laid tonight. The Christmas tree angle might be bollocks, but the truth is, I’m trying to keep busy and I’ve run out of workout time.
I’ve also extinguished my capacity to keep my fat mouth shut. “I have a date tonight.”
Logan’s washing dishes. My confession has him pulling his big hands from the sink and drying them on the towel tossed over his burly shoulder. “A say what now?”
“You heard me. A date…well, a drink. That’s a date, right?”
“Did you ask her on one?”
“Him.”
“Him?” Logan leans in to study me again. “You don’t date blokes, you fuck them.”
That he’s so free and blunt with his assessment tells me he’s home alone without his kids. And he’s not wrong. I don’t date men. What’s the point? We all want the same thing and it’s not a pint and game of darts down the local. “This one’s different.”
“Why?”
“Dunno.” I sink down on my unmade mattress, the clothes I’ve rescued from the floor piled around me. “Only met him once, and that was in passing.”
“And you got his number?”
“Heh. Not quite.”
