Page 31 of Not Safe for Work

“You seemed pretty upset when I left. I thought you might like some time alone,” I answer.

Rafe gestures to one of the waitstaff and orders a beer while I order a glass of Prosecco. He exhales a loud sigh as he falls against the sofa, his long legs stretching out and his eyes closing. I enjoy a slow perusal, noting the way his black T-shirt has ridden up, exposing a tanned sliver of toned stomach. He’s wearing white shorts and leather flip-flops, and even his feet are nice.

“Are you sure you don’t want to talk about it?” I ask.

I am prying because I’m a giant snoop, but he looks so distraught that I have a weird, unfamiliar desire to ease his burden.

“You won’t care” is his reply, and I frown.

“Why would you say that?”

He peers over at me, raising an eyebrow in a way that hooks me right through my stomach. I shift, pressing my thighs together. His eyes drop to my bare legs as I attempt to put some distance between us. But he’s screwing with me because he shifts in the same direction, as if he, too, is just getting more comfortable. When all our maneuvering is said and done, we’re still touching, and I’m still much too aware of it.

“Do you care what happens in my life, Malik?”

I open and close my mouth. I care. I’ve cared all along, but I’ve done such a good job of ensuring I never admit that to myself.

He snorts and scans the horizon, his eyebrows drawing together.

“Hannah and I broke up,” he says.

The words flow in a rush, like a raging storm, as if he couldn’t wait to set them free. My breath stops as his shoulders lift like he’s just released a thousand-pound weight. Yes, we already suspected it, but hearing it confirmed shifts something on its axis.

I think about the early years we spent antagonizing each other. For a while, I even wondered if, in my attempts to keep Rafe at a distance, we had actually gone full circle and started flirting in a weird, competitive way that I kind of respected. I’d never have let it amount to anything, of course, but there was something layered in the silent corners of our charged encounters.

Then he started dating Hannah, and I realized that whatever attraction I’d imagined had been entirely one-sided all along. Talk about humbling. But that was fine because I wanted nothing from him or anyone. I worked very hard to convert that initial spark I refused to embrace into fire and loathing, and that’s the way I liked it.

But suddenly, every innocuous word and touch and look of the past two days takes on an entirely different meaning. I think? His arm around me the other night. Begging me not to leave with Andy. The way he keeps touching me.

It hasn’t been just the last few days, though—it’s been the last few months. Something shifted—something he initiated that forced me to notice him beyond our professional interactions. I’d erected an inflatable bouncy castle between us—crossable but not without some difficulty—but a firing line has just blown it full of holes, leaving it flattened on the ground.

Rafe is single. Rafe is no longer in a relationship.

Why does it feel like everything just changed?

He gives me a questioning look, and I realize it’s been several seconds, and I haven’t responded.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.”

Why does that sound so insincere?

“Then… why does she keep calling you?”

He cuts me a sharp look. “How do you know that?”

Oops. I press my lips together and wrinkle my nose.

“Sorry, the door to the balcony was open in the bedroom earlier, and I heard you say her name. I didn’t hear anything else, though, I swear.”

It’s at that moment our drinks arrive, and I accept mine, taking a big sip to cover my embarrassment.

He closes his eyes and tips his face to the sky. “Whatever. It hardly matters what anyone hears. It happened about six months ago.”

Six months.

More than enough time for the body to grow cold.

He peers over at me. “She keeps calling because she wants to get back together.”