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“But that’s the point,” I growled back. “She never pushed for more and now she’s gone because I’ll never want more and if I do, it’s only because I need a mother figure for my child. That’s crap logic and you know it.”
“Maybe she did want more but she knew she wouldn’t get it from you, so she decided you were good enough for now.” Miles shrugged. “Women do that, apparently.”
I nodded and let out a long, frustrated sigh. “That’s pretty much what she said and I still say its bullshit.”
“Why now, Grant? Why do you suddenly want more than a casual fling with Brenna? If it has nothing to do with Mariana, what does it have to do with?” Liam’s gaze was strong and unflappable. “Worried no woman will want to deal with a single father who can’t stay out late?” He let out a loud, barking laugh meant to piss me off, which he succeeded at doing.
I flipped him off with a frown. “Asshole.”
“No arguments from me,” Liam said with a grin. “Can we get back to work now or are we gonna paint each other’s toenails?”
At Liam’s teasing words, we spent the next seventy-five minutes going over actual business items that needed to be addressed, including another trip for Miles to the east coast for more sign ups. It was productive and I appreciated the guys trying to help with my Brenna situation, even if they just muddied the waters even more.
Back in my office, I tried to focus on outlining an easier version of our teamwork obstacle course for a few upcoming corporate clients but all I could think about was Brenna and that damn sad smile she wore as she left the lake house last night. “This is ridiculous.” I couldn’t just let myself be distracted by a woman all day, not when I work to do here and a whole different set of chores to take care of when I got home. Mariana was self-sufficient but she was still a child who needed her meals cooked, her laundry washed and her homework checked over. There was no time for me to be distracted. I picked up the phone and dialed her.
“Grant, what’s up?” Her voice was even, not happy or sad to hear from me, just a hint of surprise.
“What’s up is that I can’t get you or your words, out of my head, Brenna. What are we going to do about that?”
She let out a pretty, feminine laugh. “We aren’t going to do anything, Grant. Neither of us.”
I frowned and looked at the phone to make sure I’d heard her right. “Why not?”
“Because,” she sighed. “We’ve already been over this, Grant. We’ve had our fun but it’s time for you to focus on Mariana. It’s time for us both to move on.”
I was losing her and I could feel it, and worse, I didn’t like it. “What if I don’t want to move on from you, Brenna. We had a good thing, didn’t we?”
“It was perfect, Grant. For what it was, it was absolutely perfect.”
“You mean for the temporary relationship that it was?”
“Yeah,” she sighed. “That’s exactly what I meant. Why are you so determined to make this a big thing? You got exactly what you wanted and yeah, it might have ended sooner than either of us liked, but that’s where it was always gonna end up.”
“You don’t know that,” I insisted.
“I absolutely do.” She let out a nervous laugh and I could picture her in my mind, running her fingers through long blond locks. “You don’t want me, Grant. Not before Mariana and not now. I’m a familiar face and we have good chemistry, but if you wanted me you would have wanted me before now.”
“I do want you, dammit!” to ra
“For sex, and that’s all right. I enjoyed that part of our relationship too, but we have to be smart. Eventually we can be friends and we’ll need to be because it takes a village to raise a child and I plan to be part of that village.”
“Even if we’re not together?”
“Yes, Grant. Even though we are not together. At some point we’ll both move and find ways to behave like adults. To pretend we’ve never seen each other naked.”
“Impossible.”
She laughed. “Well we can both try. Really hard. That’s why the good lord above invented alcohol.” Her laughter went on for a few more moments but it wasn’t true laughter, it was meant to fill the void, to avoid talking about the thing she wanted to ignore. Us. The heat and the chemistry between us.
Nothing else was working, maybe the truth would. “I wasn’t trying to take our relationship to the next level or anything, Brenna. I just meant that we’re friends and usually friends chip in to help out in these situations.”
