I hadn’t fucked anyone.
I’d told myself I needed a break. A little sexbbatical. The equipment wasn’t working right; I’d barely even been able to get off with that chick.
All the bullshit with my band, the stress, was getting to me.
I needed to hit the pause button on everything—including women—and get my head right. Just shut everything else out for a little while so I could focus on making the next move I needed to make. Make the decision to leave my band and commit to it, follow through with it.
It wasn’t an easy decision to make.
I told myself all the weird sex shit—Courteney popping into my head while I was fucking that stripper… and all the other times she’d popped into my head over the last two years…
It was the stress.
I wasn’t thinking straight.
But since she’d moved into Cary’s a few days ago and we were suddenly practically living together? I’d barely been able to think about anything other than Courteney Clarke.
And now here I was… jerking off in the shower, thinking about her.
I wasn’t thinking about fucking her, exactly, as my hand worked my dick and I closed my eyes. I was just thinking abouther… all this bullshit between us. I barely realized what I was doing. I knew I’d started jerking off, but I didn’t exactly pause to examine what I was thinking aboutwhileI did it.
Or why I’d gotten so damn hard just standing here in the middle of the night, fucking aggravated and thinking about her.
I came with a ridiculous, pent-up growl of frustration. I slapped my hand against the wet tile wall, and I tried to catch my breath. And it really hit me—that I hadn’t fucked anything other than my hand in almost a month.
Fuck.
There was something…undonebetween the two of us. Something unfinished.
Something that could never be done or finished, because it couldn’tbe.
I toweled off and flopped into bed. Exhausted. Still aggravated. Halfway disgusted with myself, and not because I wanted her.
Because I was so damnweakfor her.
Shit…I needed to see Cary.
I needed to look him in his eyes—so fucking much like his sister’s—and get that cold dose of reality. To remind me what I was doing here.
For once in your life, you’re gonna be the good guy.
You’re gonna be Best Friend of the Goddamn Year.
Which means you’re gonna leave her the fuck alone.
I picked up my phone to message him. Maybe if we hung out tomorrow… he could finally play me what he’d been working on. The new album.
But when I looked at the screen, there was a text message from Courteney.
Courteney:Let me know when you get home and have a minute. I need to talk to you.
I actually had to read it twice to convince myself it was real. But there she was, in her hoodie, smiling at me from the little thumbnail photo. The message was sent about forty minutes ago.
I looked over at my window. My room was dark and my shades were drawn partway. But I could see the slice of light around the edge of the drapes in her window.
I texted her back.
Me:I’m home.
