“Right. I will.” He strips off his dark woolen coat and drops it to one end of the booth, the smell of rain and wool and cologne assaulting my nose.I didn’t even know rain had a smell.“Back in a bit.”
“Better make it a double,” I mutter once he’s out of earshot. “Lord knows one of us should be drinking.” A pain shoots up my left wrist, and I realize my fist is clenched. It’s a physicalmanifestation of stress that hearkens back to my childhood. What might be a natural reflex to a developing nervous system gave me carpal tunnel more than once. The fact that I’m feeling like this now—again—makes my eyeballs prickle.
No, and hell no. I’m not going there again.
I cried myself dry a long time ago.
I’m usually much better at keeping my emotions at arm’s length. I am not enjoying my visit to the past, and these reactions feel alien after all this time. Overwhelm is nobody’s friend.
“Name five things you can see.”
An old therapist’s advice comes floating back to me. I’ve had my fair share of therapy on my way to becoming the person I am today. It helped me rationalize my mother’s shortcomings.
Not so much my own, though.
I push the insidious thought aside in favor of finding my five things. The rain on the windowpane, sparkling like diamonds. My shaking hands, the earthenware cup they’re wrapped around. My coat by my leg and that ass and those dark jeans.
A laugh bubbles up inside me. Oh, the irony of a lingering attraction. I force myself to move on.
“Four things you can hear.” Music. The ambient kind that gives off good drinking vibes. The chink of glasses, the buzz of my phone with an incoming message I don’t want to read. Matt’s chuckle as the bartender flirts with him.
Touch. Three more things.My cooling cup, my forehead slightly damp to the touch. The smooth wooden tabletop.
Deep breath.
Smell. Two things.My herby tea and the hint of liquor long ingrained into the walls.
Taste. One more thing to concentrate on.I lift my cup and grimace at the tepid liquid.
He turns, his expression open. Why not guarded?
My leg begins to bounce, but I force it not to, jamming my hand under it as he pulls out his wallet.Good Lord, that is an ass made for jeans.I wonder if he has a personal shopper. Whether in a tux, a suit, or jeans and a fine-knit sweater—and I’m digging those rugged worker’s boots—he probably always looks like he’s just stepped from the pages of a magazine.
As he taps his card to pay for his drink, I snatch up my phone and pretend to be engrossed in it, rotating my aching wrist out of sight. But there’s nothing I need to see on my screen—the earlier text was just junk. I have no markets to watch, no reports to read, no calls to return.What the heck will I do with myself?
Matt gives a polite cough as he reaches the booth, and I look up.
“This is a nice place.”
“Yeah, it is.” A pause. “I was surprised how big it is inside.” Small talk, urgh. I’m not sure it makes it better or worse that we’ve seen each other’s genitals. Seen, touched.And the rest.
“Like aTardis,” he adds. The reference goes over my head, but I don’t ask him to explain. We’re not friends. “Do you mind if I ...” He gestures to the booth.
I give a careless flick of my wrist:Have at it.
“Have you been here before?” Putting his glass on the tabletop, he slots himself in at the end of the booth.
“Once. After work.” Last week with Martine, toasting the new year and our future success.
Here’s to being ambitchious! To being a better bitch.
Where did that Ryan go?
“Thanks for meeting me,” he says carefully before he brings his glass to his mouth. That lush, talented mouth.
“Thanks for being flexible.” So very flexible, as I recall.Urgh. Stupid brain, knock that off.“With your time,” I add coolly, glad he can’t read my thoughts. “I get that you’re busy.”Just not busy getting busy,my mind supplies, in all its inappropriateness.
“I’m sure we both are.” His fingers flex around his glass. “So, yesterday.” The words are expelled with a deep exhale, signaling a change of conversational gear. “I genuinely didn’t know you’d be there. That you work for Theta.”
