“I think we both did.”
“I guess the question is, Kenny, do we redraw the line? Or do we let it burn?”
The answer would be easy if Hawk were anyone other than my boss.
“I don’t want to be known as someone who slept her way to a promotion. And right now, that would be hard to dispute. But yes, Hawk. I’m attracted to you.”
“Same, Kenny. Though I think I made that more than obvious. What do we do about it?”
I really liked that he was always looking for my input. If I said I needed space, he’d give it.
“I think right now both our working relationship and our friendship are the most important.”
“I agree to a point. I don’t think I’m going to get less attracted to you the more time we spend together,” Hawk said.
He had a point. If anything, I only wanted him more.
“So, we keep it as friends for now? And revisit it later?”
He sighed. “On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“Please don’t make me watch you go on shitty dates with freaky randos.”
I laughed. “They didn’t fly their freak flag right away.”
“That’s not what I’m saying. We don’t bring anyone into the mix until we decide what’s going on between us.”
“So we’re exclusively non-dating friends.”
“It’s like what my younger cousin calls ‘talking.’”
I laughed. “I used to think that was weird. But I guess we’re weird.”
“Nah. We just have too much at stake to jump into anything hastily.”
“Agreed.”
“How was the ceremony?”
“It was beautiful. They both deserve to be happy. Hold on.”
I sent him a picture of me and Crew dancing at the reception.
“He’s fricking adorable.”
“He is. You know what one of my biggest regrets in the world is?” I pulled my legs in and hugged them into my chest, wrapping one arm around them and resting my head to the side as I held the phone to my other ear. God, he pulled all sorts of confessions from me.
“What?”
“I tried to get Kelsey to abort him. And when she didn’t, I let our relationship fall apart while she struggled for the first few months after he was born. I couldn’t separate what would have been right for me from what was right for her.”
The resulting silence pushed a stab of fear into my heart. Would he hate me as much as I hated myself? As much as I deserved to be hated?
“Have you ever had an abortion?”
“No, but only because I miscarried first. I told my sisters I did.”
