“It happens,” Miss Leslie said in a calming tone snapping us free of whatever had taken hold. She ran Sadie through the movements and timing again maintaining absolute professionalism with only a hint of curiosity in her dark eyes.
This time when we went through the dip, Sadie rotated into my hold, circling my neck with her arms just like they were supposed to, I lowered her with our gazes locked. The rest of the world faded. Her breath whispered along my jaw. It would take so little effort to kiss her. Probably less energy than it took to not, to only hold her. Just when I thought I might not be able to resist any longer, her head fell back with a sigh.
Chapter 8
Sadie
Ihugged Miss Leslie goodbye, thanking her for such a wonderful experience. Despite all the odds, I had had so much fun. I even felt that Jamison and I had come to a less adversarial place. Yes, internally, I was a tangled mess of sexual frustration, but also the sight of him didn’t spark pain and embarrassment anymore. I wouldn’t have thought one forty-five-minute session of anything could have done that. Somehow, she’d broken us both out of our heads enough to enjoy the moment—the crinkle at the corner of Jamison’s brown eyes when he smiled had helped too.
He waited for me at the door, pushing it open and waving to our instructor as I approached him. Outside, rain poured from the sky with a water pressure my apartment shower aspired to achieve.
“Holy cow,” I said having to raise my voice over the sound of water splashing on the pavement. “It’s really coming down.”
“It is. You wait here, I’ll bring the car up.” He shrugged his shoulders toward his ears preparing to step under the downpour.
Placing a hand on his arm, I shook my head. “No, it’s okay, I’ll go with you. I like the rain.”
Without another word, I stepped under the downpour running to the Jeep. The headlights flashed as he unlocked it with the fob, and reached a hand out for my door.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said, but he was already swinging it open for me to slide into the passenger seat. The door closed behind me, and I watched through the already fogging windshield as he jogged around the hood. And I was struck with the same heated admiration I usually felt when I laid my eyes on him. There was a masculinity to him that I responded to—to say the least. It pulled at me like a moth to the flame, at least now I understood that getting too close would mean getting burnt. That these gestures of chivalry were just that, gestures.
It didn’t actually mean that he was harboring repressed feelings for me. Maybe I had overreacted. There was a slight possibility, if I were being completely honest with myself, that my bruised ego had clouded my judgment some. But then, I’d also been willing to get real down and dirty last night if we hadn’t been interrupted. It was fair to say my instincts to avoid him in order to end the situationship were wise.
But there was no avoiding him forever, and definitely not over the next few days.
So, what was I going to do about that?
Diving into the driver’s seat, Jamison shook his head spraying drops of water all over the Jeep and me. I threw my hands over my face laughing. When I turned back to him, he had stilled with a laugh on his lips, those damn crinkles fanned out from the corners of his eyes behind his fogged glasses. The pounding of the rain on the roof of the vehicle drowned out the thrumming of my heart.
Water collected at the tips of his wavy hair. A tiny stream dripped down his cheek bone to disappear into the scruff on his jaw.
Before I could get completely lost in his beauty, I looked away flipping my hands to dry them. “You’re an annoyingly good dancer.”
“You’re not so bad either.” He turned the key to fire up the engine. This time the silence on our trip back to the hotel was charged with a different energy entirely.
***
Jamison stood on the completely opposite side of the elevator holding the railing on either side of his hips. I tapped my toe on the carpet, waiting to reach our floor. It’d probably be less awkward if I could think of anything to say to him, but the only thing on my mind was how fucking naked we could be in a matter of minutes.
But also, that we shouldn’t.
We really shouldn’t.
Right?
This was the problem I had when it came to him, a net zero of better judgment.
“Did I do something wrong?” he asked, pulling me back to the present. “I’m not always good with people. I do and say the wrong thing all the time. I”—he took his glasses off to clean the raindrops from their lenses with his sweatshirt—“want to be good with you.”
I sighed.
He really didn’t know. It was mind boggling to think that he could be unaware of how I’d fallen head over heels for him or that he hadn’t understood when I’d asked him months ago if we could be something meaningful. When he’d gone into an explanation about his work and his passion for it, it wasn’t him letting me down easily, it was him being completely oblivious. Which was at once humiliating and a relief.
At least right here, right now there was clarity.
My feelings were my own, and it was my responsibility to protect them. Under no circumstances could I let my emotions grow into something real for him ever again.
The conversation had provoked me to look outside of my relationships for what brought me purpose, the way his work did for him. I felt passionately about what our organization did. Every time we were successful in protecting the earth’s waterways, felt like a personal victory, even if it kinda wasn’t. I wasn’t the one on the ground fighting with the lawmakers like Jamison or coordinating the communities like Alicia did. Maybe that was why the wins didn’t feel like I could take outward ownership of them. Just a silent pat on the back and a boasting email of gratitude to both of them, instead.
