Page 32 of Lift Me Up

“Georgie, believe me when I say that in either scenario, I think I’ve already won.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

NOAH

Things about The Kiss ™ that I can’t stop replaying in my mind:

1. The way her lips are so plush and soft against mine

2. The way she hums when she’s happy

3. The way her body feels against mine

4. The smell of her hair overwhelming my senses

5. The way she leads and takes what she wants

6. The way I want her to do it again

If I thought my mind was a Georgie spiral before, post-kiss, the spiral has turned into tunnel vision. All I can see, hear, feel and think is Georgie. Not that I mind at all. Now I have a reason to think about her, to think of all the things I want now that she’ll let me have them. I’m sure she’d let me have anything I wanted if I asked nicely enough.

I knew that if I stayed any longer, I wouldn’t be able to leave. Every part of me screamed to stay, to see where things were headed, to experience everything all at once just in case she changed her mind. But then she kissed me, again and again, and I knew she wanted this just as much as I did. She was the reason it was so easy to take the job at the hobby shop. The idea to visit the rescue was a way to ask her to spend time with me outside of our work life, and she could decide what that meant. Date, friendship crafted and grown over a love of rescue pups, I wanted that opportunity to get to know her. As friends, as more than friends, as whatever she wanted to let me be.

When I got home from her place though, I had to have a cold shower and then a hot shower when I realized that the cold shower was not working. This woman was going to make me perma-hard without even trying. I felt like a high schooler with a crush on the senior cheerleader, and with very little effort I rectified the situation the cold shower could not undo. After, I had a nap, and then woke to a message from Georgie that made me a little too giddy for my own good.

Georgie

How’s reading going? You have until tomorrow morning to read the book after all

I was honest with her then, telling her that I hadn’t started. She sent me a witty response about how she was going to win, and I just sent back a book emoji with a sorry too busy reading response. But now it’s three thirty in the morning, Georgie and I start work in less than six hours, I am halfway through this book and damn it, I can’t decide if I want to win or lose.

Realistically, if I win, what would I want? If I am honest, I am pretty sure I already have it, if the promise of The Kiss™ is any indication. But who is to say that Georgie won't change her mind? It wouldn’t be the first time someone had, but this might be more upsetting than that. I feel a connection with her, from the moment we met in that elevator. I can only hope that she feels that too.

If I lose, what would Georgia win? Would she choose something that had to do with what we did in her apartment? Would she choose something totally left field? There’s a part of me that’s more eager to find out than anything.

I feel like Dean, a character from the book currently in my hands. He is absolutely smitten with the female protagonist Erin, the sexy, dominant, caring businesswoman whom he has just taken an assistant job for. He is always debating how far he should push and how much he wants to wager to get Erin to notice him in more than an assistant/boss relationship. He doesn't want to jeopardize the relationship he has, because of course he needs his job, but he also can’t help himself. He wants to take whatever she will give and will thank her for it.

I can’t help but think about Georgie in that way, that after thinking about her for so long, to finally have a friendship, a relationship of any kind with her, would be a gift. I never expected to know her; thought she would be the one that got away. But she’s part of my life now, and I would do anything to protect that.

It makes me question my sanity a little. The temptation of both options is still there no matter how hard I try to pick one. So, officially declaring it undecided, I put down the book and let myself rest up, seeing how far I can get into the book in the morning before seeing her.

But in the morning, when I arrive at the shop, Georgie is nowhere to be seen. Abi is at the front desk cash working on a project, I think crochet of some sort, and she looks up to see me and gives me a shrug.

“You’re stuck with me today, kiddo.”

Instant panic. My throat hurts, it feels like it might close, and then there’s the tremble in my hands. “Is she okay? I just saw her yesterday,”

“She’ll be just fine. Just under the weather is all,” Abi explains it away and pats the desk, “Come, come. We’ll make a crafter of you yet.”

The day passes in a blur of customers asking for assistance with yarn and other hobby materials. A man asks me if I know anything about the paint in the ‘build-your-own-plane’ kit, and I have to be honest and tell him I don’t but offer to look it up for him. I learn far more about acrylic paint than I thought I’d ever know.

But the whole time I’m here, pretending to listen to a customer named Lisa tell me about her granddaughter, I’m thinking about Georgie.

How is she? How sick is she? What is wrong? Why won’t she answer my texts? Did I do something? Am I being too much? Am I not doing enough?

It’s very unnerving to feel this self-conscious; I’m not normally questioning everything like this. But I send her messages, funny pictures, anything I think will make her happy or make her laugh. I am met with radio silence. It continues into the night, and there I am again eating ramen and staring at my phone, waiting for the screen to light up with her name in bright, bold letters to tell me that yes, she’s fine, yes, she still wants to kiss me. But there’s nothing, and it eats away at me.

So, I distract myself with reading. I read about Dean and Erin, their game of cat and mouse, of will they-won't they, their chance encounters, secret rendezvous’ that clearly shouldn’t happen, giving into the desire and lust and eventually feelings until- until the end of the book comes, and I realize I have nothing more to read, nothing more to distract me. Worst of all, I’ve technically won the bet, and I don’t know what to do with that information.