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I drew my brows down. “What?”

“Here. Tonight. My sofa has a pullout bed. It could be fun. We could stay up late watching The Office and do mud masks.”

I almost had to laugh at the irony.

I shook my head. “I wish I could. But that really wouldn’t be appropriate.”

Her face fell. “Oh. Right.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I get it.”

We stood there a moment, a weird heaviness between us. It lingered like steam from a shower.

I didn’t want to go home. But being in her apartment with the lights dimmed and her barefoot and braless and asking me to stay the night was dangerous ground.

I was keenly aware of the potential to get hurt here. I knew I was falling for a woman who didn’t want to be pursued. And continuing to put myself in intimate situations that made me wish she did wasn’t good for me. But at the same time, I didn’t want to leave. I didn’t want to miss anything. She made me never want to close my eyes around her. I didn’t even want to blink. I realized it at my office and on that ladder yesterday, her perfume dancing around me like lightning bugs flickering in the summer. I realized it laughing with her after her robe malfunction and sitting there next to her at her dad’s where I could feel her there like a raging bonfire, she was so warm.

She looked up at me with those big, vulnerable brown eyes and I thought again about kissing her. A part of me wanted to say fuck it and just do it, take the risk, break the rules, forget about the consequences, the possibility of losing her, and just lean in.

I let my gaze fall to her mouth. Her lips looked soft and warm. I could imagine running my hands up her shirt, around her waist, pulling her into me. I wanted to put my nose into her neck, rake fingers in her hair, taste her mouth. I wanted her to touch me.

I stared for only a second before looking anywhere but at her.

She had no idea the power she had over me—and I don’t think even I realized it until tonight. It was almost comical, Gerald declaring they had a lawyer in the family—because they did. I’d do anything she needed. She’d wrapped me around her little finger without even trying.

I’d had clients go to prison for doing something stupid at the behest of some woman and I always shook my head at their gullibility. But now I understood it. I had a feeling Vanessa could call me and ask me to help her move a body and I’d show up five minutes later with rubber gloves and bleach.

I cleared my throat. “I should go.”

I grabbed my jacket and let myself out before I said, or worse, did, something stupid.

At midnight I lay in my own bed, a foot away from where she was probably lying in hers. It was officially her birthday. I sent her a text I’d had ready all day. A picture of a salted caramel Nadia Cakes torte that I’d gotten her with a candle in it and a text that read “Hey girl, you up?”

I heard her laugh through the wall.

She texted me, “Fuck yeah, I’m up. Come over.”

I sat up and stared at the plaster and brick between us. I wanted to come over. I wanted her to really want me to. And not for a sleepover either.

I replied with a laughing emoji. Then I rolled over and spent the next hour tossing and turning, missing her, trying to fall asleep in the wrong bed.

CHAPTER 16

I SHOWED UP TO MY BIRTHDAY PARTY AND YOU’LL NEVER GUESS WHO WAS THERE!

VANESSA

I spent the morning of my birthday with Dad and Brent. Another Nar-Anon meeting and then out to eat. A meeting wasn’t really my idea of a good time, but I wasn’t above using my birthday as leverage to make them go. Adrian watched Grace.

He’d wanted to come out with us.

First he offered to make me breakfast. Then when I told him where I was going, he asked me if I wanted him to take me. I said no. There was only so much bullshit I could in good conscience allow him to endure. Dad twice in less than twelve hours, a Nar-Anon meeting, and Perkins would probably be the end of this friendship.

I’d gotten back around 11:00 a.m., but Adrian told me he’d keep Grace so I could have a few hours of alone time. He always watched Grace for me while I showered, but I never drew it out. I didn’t want to take advantage. A few hours of alone time was probably the best birthday gift I’d ever gotten. I was so freaking excited. I was going to take the world’s longest bubble bath.

On top of this, I’d come home to flowers in my apartment. He’d cleaned too. There were vacuum lines on the carpet. He’d made my bed and done all the dishes. He’d even cleaned the bathroom.

I can’t tell you the strength it took to keep me from running back to his apartment and tearing off his clothes.

Last night I’d asked him to stay over—I wasn’t planning anything scandalous, but if he’d initiated something scandalous, I wasn’t gonna say no. Instead he’d politely declined before fleeing back to his place as quickly as humanly possible. Then he’d texted me at midnight with a picture of a cake and I’d told him to come over. I wasn’t kidding.