Page 46 of Love Unspoken

I heard him laugh and then burst into a coughing fit that sounded extremely painful. "Oh, Darren, I hate this for you."

"I hate that you're alone for Christmas, Sparky."

"We'll make up for it…if you test negative by New Year's Eve," I offered.

"I want to die," I heard one of his friends, a big former linebacker who could still bench press two twenty, whimper.

"Are you all at your place?"

"Yeah, we're COVID central here. We're keeping DoorDash busy."

"Hey, Sparky, will you drop off some of your Christmas cookies?" another one of his friends shouted. "My wife is pissed with me and won't give me any."

"You leave them at the door," Darren instructed.

"Aye, aye, captain."

"Okay, now I'm gonna go die a little bit, alright."

"Big hug, D."

"Big hug, Sparky."

Well, that was a debacle, I thought as I set my phone down on my desk in my cubicle. It wasn't the end of the world though. I decided to be nice to myself and maybe take a spa day. And then decided against it. I just couldn't expose my scars to someone. Damn it! I hated my life. Hated that I was afraid of just letting it go and letting my scars be seen. But I couldn't. No matter how much therapy I had, this was the one thing I couldn't get past, which held me back from so many things.

I banged my head against my desk, feeling frustrated.

"You alright there?"

I sat up and curbed my groan that Amias had to walk in right then to see me lose my shit.

"Yep. All okay."

"Why were you…ah…you know?"

"Banging my head on the desk?"

"Yeah, that." He smiled, and his eyes lit up.

Hush, stupid heart, I instructed. He's getting engaged to that evil witch. He was now truly out of bounds. I had to find something new for my spank bank. Was it okay to masturbate to a married man? Well, if you could masturbate to Chris Hemsworth, who was married, why not Amias Westbrook?

"I just heard from Darren. He and his friends went to Vegas and got COVID, I suspect, from a stripper."

Amias' smile widened. "What a coincidence. My Christmas plans fell through as well."

I cleared my throat. "They did?"

"Yeah."

"How come?"

"Well, the plan was to join my family in Switzerland."

I nodded, waiting.

"But," he stepped into my cubicle and leaned against my desk, his leg brushing against mine, "I broke up with Ann, which pissed my mother off, who was expecting an engagement. I didn't want to deal with angry mom at Christmas."

I reminded my heart again to shut the hell up and not get all hopeful. Just because he dumped the evil witch—or did she dump him?—didn't mean that he'd be jumping my bones anytime soon. Or ever. I couldn't imagine a universe in which I'd allow Amias to see me naked. Even if the lights were completely turned off and there was Polar Night around us, so there wasn't even a sliver of light, he'd still be able to touch my scars. So, naked sexy times with Amias was a hell no!