“With me?” She glances over her shoulder, clearly even more curious, but thankfully, Suebelle is nowhere to be seen. “Care to explain?”
“She’s nice, she’s just super energetic and overly chipper and so,soloud.” I wince just thinking about how she has absolutely no indoor voice. “We work in different departments, but one day, she saw a picture of you on my desk and hada lotof questions—”
“You have a picture of me on your desk?”
I ignore the look she gives me, one that’s a cross between surprised and arrogant. “She wanted to know if you were single and asked a ton of questions, and now, every time she sees me, she asks about you, and I know she’s going to just burst when she sees you here.”
“What picture?”
Someone walks by with a tray of what looks like champagne, and I snag two flutes and glare. “I shouldn’t have inflated your ego by telling you.”
“Is it one of me in a bikini?” She tries to take one of the glasses, and I hold it just out of reach. Unbothered, Alex chuckles.
“No, it’s one of us at the last Reds game we went to.” I finally let her have her glass, and she nods as if she knows exactly which photo I’m talking about. The one with her hat on backward and me in her favorite jersey.
Then she leans in close. “You’re thinking about me in a bikini, aren’t you?”
I take a sip of my champagne, a slight buzz making its way through me, and ignore her knowing look. Because, yeah. I totally am.
Suebelle finds us twenty minutes later. Just like I thought she would, she lays on the Southern charm and pulls out all the stops in an attempt to flirt with Alex.
Of course, Alex rolls with it. She flirts back but not seriously enough to indicate genuine interest, and in an instant, Suebelle is positively smitten. I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes every time she runs her hand down Alex’s arm or throws her head back and laughs way too loudly, attracting curious glances from my colleagues.
“You’re not helping her crush,” I mutter.
Alex slips her hand around my waist and dips her head closer to my ear. “You didn’t tell me she was old enough to be my mother.”
I smirk and lean into her. “What? Not into cougars?”
Her gaze meets mine and drops to my mouth. She bites her lower lip and leans in just a little bit more. “Actually, I’m more into—”
“Julia.”
Her hand falls from my hip at the same time I take a step away from her. The vice president of the company approaches, along with his wife, and just like that, we’re in the thick of it, socializing and sneaking glances throughout conversations.
As the night goes on, it stays harder to focus on mingling. Not because I’m bored or uninterested but because I’m drawn to Alex and how charming she is. She makes my boss laugh and my coworkers swoon, all of them succumbing easily to her wit and humor. And they aren’t the only ones.
I continuously catch myself staring, and each time we make eye contact, my stomach does a little somersault. When she tells a particularly amusing story that has my boss’s wife roaring with laughter, she shoots me a proud smirk, and it’s all I can do not to melt on the spot.
Somewhere throughout the evening, Suebelle swoops in again, this time cornering Alex alone at the bar. I debate whether or not to jump in to save her or wait to see how she handles it.
But the universe decides for us.
A Whitney Houston Christmas song starts to play.
Okay, so maybe it was bound to happen sooner rather than later. After all, how many Christmas songs are there? But the second Whitney’s voice carries lightly over the gleeful chatter, Alex searches the crowd until her eyes finally spot me. She gives me a look, one that says, “Do you hear that?”
I smile and make a W out of my fingers, making her laugh.
That’s when I realize, I’m tired of waiting.
I’m ready to try this with her. To dive in headfirst without pretenses, without excuses, without caution. I’m tired of pretending we’re just friends when we haven’t beenjustanything for half our lives. I want all of it. The friendship, the partnership, the romance.
I wanther.
Once the realization hits, I can’t think of anything else. I don’t want to wait another second.
I weave my way through the crowd, my determination so strong that nothing could stop me from reaching her. Not even the CEO, who steps in front of me with a smile and a look that says he wants to chat.
