“Oh yeah, he can absolutely get it. Have you seen all those muscles? He’d blow your back out…” another one put in, and I grimaced at the crude comment. I took a sip of my coffee and tried to look uninterested as the girl went on.
“Whenever I see him in the halls, I always sneak a little peek at that peach, and I know you do too…” she said in a naughty half-whisper. I glared at her then and gave an exaggerated cough, disturbing them. All three turned to look at me, eyebrows cocked haughtily. Women’s minds were sometimes just as filthy as men’s.
“Apparently he’s from New York. He’s not everyone’s cup of tea, though. I heard he has a really bad temper. Annie took a run at him, but he dropped her after a little bit of mouth stuff,” a third woman cut in, a pocket-sized brunette with a very interesting set of tits.
I assessed them curiously; they might have even been bigger than mine.
“Yeah, she told me about that too. But she also told me that he’s gifted…extremely gifted…” the blond answered with a mischievous click of her tongue.
“Meaning?” the brunette asked eagerly, her eyes lighting up with lust.
“The New Yorker is well above average size…” the other woman clarified. I shook my head, bored with this superficial exchange. They clearly didn’t know how to look any further than skin deep if that was how they talked about Neil. I’d been living with him for six months, and I knew that he wasn’t just a good-looking body to ogle or a fantasy lay. He was so much more than that.
I enjoyed listening to him talk. He had a surprising breadth of knowledge, and I always learned something from our conversations.
At one point, he had pretty much hated me. Couldn’t stand to be around me. But after I saved him and convinced him to give himself another chance, something had changed.
I had found him wasted outside of Blanco the night he found out John was his biological father. He was sitting on the ground just outside of the club, leaning against the crumbling wall and feeling sorry for himself. I couldn’t leave him alone in that condition. So I suggested he go to Chicago with me right away. Professor Robinson had demonstrated enormous confidence in Neil, and he could use that to his advantage. It had been difficult to convince him at first. Eventually, I had to get him up and drag him back to my apartment, where I spent hours getting him to see reason.
If I had left him there in an angry fugue, maybe in the hands of the Krew, he would have self-destructed. He would have kept on drinking, and given the kinds of friends he ran with, maybe even started using drugs. He could have turned down a dark path and been lost forever.
Since then he had not magically transformed into some nice, friendly guy, but he had been willing to have me in his life.
I was thoughtful as I finished my coffee and tossed the paper cup into the trash. The chattering all around me had ceased, and all three women were staring at me, annoyed.
Oh, theyhatedme.
They knew I shared an apartment with the guy who had been the object of their collective desires for months, and they were envious. They assumed we were sleeping with each other, and that made them feel like I was competition. They were trying to challenge me, thinking they could turn his head with a little workplace flirtation.
Little did they know, Neil hated it when a woman came on too strong, and especially when one approached him shamelessly at work.
He was drawn to a challenge, to women who were intelligent and classy, like little Selene. The others were never going to get anything more than a one-time fuck from him.
I cleared my throat and walked over to the machine for another cup of coffee. Not for me but for my “gifted” roommate. I drummed my fingers on the counter as I waited for it to be ready. Finally, I grabbed the mug and went to the door, tossing a sultry glance over my shoulder at the trio as I left.
“Have a good one, fellow professionals,” I said with a puffed-up smile. I was flaunting my ability to approach Neil whenever I wanted, and they knew it.
I strode confidently toward his office but froze mid-step when I spotted Logan, Chloe, and Dr. Keller walking away from his door looking abashed. I tried to flag them down, but by then they’d already made it to the elevators.
Sighing heavily, I knocked on the door and waited a couple seconds for Neil to tell me to come in. When I got no response, I pushed my way inside to make sure he was okay.
Neil was alone, sitting in his chair and staring out the big windows in consternation. Looking at him, I got the same topsy-turvy feeling in the pit of my stomach I had been getting every time I saw him these days. I tried to ignore it.
“Brought you some coffee.” I moved efficiently over to him and couldn’t help but look at his lush mouth.
I inhaled deeply, taking in the pleasant smell of his cologne. Neil got up out of his chair, his face shadowed with sadness. He rounded the desk and began to pace around the office anxiously. His elegant pants broke perfectly against his long legs and highlighted his firm ass.
I snorted to myself, forced to admit that my coworkers’ raptures over his looks weren’t exactly wrong.
“I just kicked them out. My brother, my sister, and…” He scrubbed a hand over his face, his white button-down stretching against his pumped biceps. I didn’t understand what was happening to me—I couldn’t quit staring at him. “John,” he added in the barest whisper, like it cost him a great deal of effort.
I sat down on the edge of his desk and crossed my legs, giving him my undivided attention.
“You already know what I think about that. I’ve said all along that you shouldn’t have cut them out of your life. William’s a piece of shit, and he was trying to hurt you. The way you’ve reacted is only giving him what he wants.” I tracked his masculine body stalking back and forth in front of me. One hand on his hip and the other massaging his anguished head. Neil loved his siblings; they were everything to him, but finding out about his biological father had made him surly and distrustful even with them.
He needed to work through that trauma if he ever wanted to open his heart to his family again.
“And what am I supposed to do?” He pinned my gaze with his luminous eyes. “Go back to my old life? Back to New York? Back to that house? I can’t. Everything there would just be a reminder of what I was, who I’ve been for years, and all the shit I’ve been through, and…fuck! I just don’t want to! I’m stable now. I’m doing better. I can’t reconcile that past with the life I have now.” He heaved a sigh, his chest rising and falling raggedly.
