AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I didn’t mind,” she said as she picked her shirt up off the floor.
“Me either.” Now that was the understatement of the year.
“Good.” She slipped her T-shirt on, and then she pulled on her jeans, covering up that glorious bare ass from sight. She leaned over and brushed her lips across his. “I gotta go.”
Shock froze him for a second. Yeah, he’d pulled the fuck-and-flee move before himself, but he’d never been the one left. He had no fucking clue how to process that or what to say now, so he went with what he figured was the polite fuck-boy response. “Can I at least get you an Uber?”
“I got it.” She picked up her phone off the counter and tapped the screen. Then she strolled over to where he was standing dumbfounded in the middle of his kitchen and gave him another kiss, this one long and lingering as if she wanted one final taste. “Good night, Cal.”
He could still taste her on his lips when he watched her walk out his front door, closing it with a solid click behind her. He made it five whole seconds before hustling over to the door. He cracked it open—because he was looking out for her not because he was a creep—in time to watch her disappear down the stairs and, no doubt, out of his life.
Ignoring the tension pulling his shoulders tight when he couldn’t see her anymore, he told himself that this was for the best.
He was in Harbor City to resurrect his career. Second chances in hockey for guys like him were nearly impossible to come by, and third opportunities were just a myth. He couldn’t fuck this up. He had to be 100 percent all work, all the time. And that meant not getting distracted by a woman with a smart mouth, deadly curves, and a certain something about her that made him want to see her again.
Chapter Seven
Dr. Kowecki arched her eyebrows so high they could have joined the astronauts in the space station.
Astrid’s therapist had really expressive eyebrows. She’d never noticed it before Dr. Kowecki had grown out her bangs, but now that she had and wore her hair tucked behind her ears, Astrid was fascinated. Only one eyebrow went up? Astrid was full of shit and/or deflecting again. If it was the outsides of the eyebrows lifted? Astrid should know better than to try to change the subject. Again. When her inner eyebrows went down and she got that little wrinkle in her nose? Astrid needed a hug from a friend, maybe a martini, and for sure to work through that thing she’d just said.
The double eyebrow surprise face, though? Pretty rare for a woman whose job involved hearing all of the things her patients probably didn’t tell anyone else.
“He lives in your building? Your teeny-tiny building with like eight apartments?” Dr. Kowekci said, not really asking the question even though there were question marks at the end of each sentence—maybe even after each word. She tapped the end of her glasses against her chin and then put them back on, letting out a little huh sound as her eyebrows settled back into place. “Considering your pattern has been to only have sex with men you probably would never see again, to choose to be with someone you’ll more than likely run into again is very interesting.”
“He’s just a hot guy I met at the bar,” Astrid said, dropping her gaze to the high-end Persian rug on the floor between the leather club couch where she sat with her legs crisscross applesauce and the club chair where Dr. Kowekci was. “Nothing more. Nothing less.”
“And when you run into him on the stairs or getting your mail?” her therapist asked.
Astrid’s stomach executed a round-off as she imagined Cal standing in front of the line of brass postal boxes in the tiny lobby. He’d pull out some sales fliers and an invitation to one of the building’s rooftop BBQs, look up at the stairs, and spot her. He’d drop his mail and rush over to her, sweep her up into his arms, and carry her to his apartment where he’d strip her, fuck her, and feed her spaghetti.
Whoa. Take it down a few notches, girlie.
She took a second to school her features so she didn’t look as turned on as she was and then looked back up at Dr. Kowecki. “I’ll just say hi and keep walking.”
The therapist’s right eyebrow went up. “Because that’s what you do?”
“Exactly,” Astrid said while not imagining the same mail scenario but this time with Cal shirtless.
Dr. Kowecki tilted her head to the right and scrunched her eyebrows together in the middle. “You know what I think?”
Astrid shoved down her what-the-fuck nerves at a new eyebrow move and straightened her shoulders, donning her best unbothered cool girl persona that never fooled Dr. Kowecki. “That I have excellent discipline and have taken sexual self-care to new heights?”
“That you just committed the mother of all acts of self-sabotage and I’ve never been more proud of you,” her therapist said, practically beaming at Astrid like a delighted mama bear. “This is what we call growth.”
Astrid recoiled at the idea. She wasn’t looking for growth or acceptance or moving on. She didn’t need them. Indignation gnawed away at her stomach lining as if she’d just downed a travel mug of espresso spiked with battery acid.
“What are you talking about?” she spluttered.
“You fucked a man who came to your rescue—”
“I didn’t really need the help.” She waved off her therapist’s words. “Andy is a dick, but he’s harmless, and I can handle him on my own without breaking a sweat.”
Dr. Kowecki had heard a lot about Andy in past sessions, and she drew her eyebrows together in a good-point nonverbal.
“Okay, so this man stuck up for you. And you are the woman who swears she needs no one and nothing from anyone else ever. Theeeeeeen,” she drew the word out, “you slept with him even though he lives in your building and there’s no way you’ll be able to pull the usual never-see-them-again routine that you’ve adhered to for the past five years.”
Astrid wrapped her arms around her middle and slumped down. “It’s not a big deal.”
