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Twenty-One
Gavin missed not seeing Hallie last night. He’d considered deterring her from going out, but he was not the clingy sort. He didn’t used to be, anyway. At least he hadn’t had to sit at home alone.
Since Cash had been booted out of his house that night, too, he’d called Will and Luke and Gavin. The four of them had met at the studio to talk shop and down a few cold beers. Luckily for Gav, his brothers had mostly talked about work and sports rather than busting his balls over Hallie. Ironically, they would have been right to. He’d been out with the boys, having a good time, and yet she’d consumed most of his thoughts.
He’d arrived home to empty sheets. Going to bed alone hadn’t been a big deal for him before he’d met Hallie, but he’d had trouble sleeping without her. So. That had been mildly alarming.
This morning he’d woken, made coffee and rubbed the achy, empty feeling in the center of his chest. He’d blamed it on heartburn at first but after he’d texted her and invited her over, the mysterious ache vanished. She’d put him off until afternoon, but he didn’t care when she came as long as she did. He couldn’t wait to hold her close, to kiss her plush mouth, to strip her naked and be inside her.
He shoved his needy feelings aside and prepared lunch, slapping a couple of turkey sandwiches together with pickles, lettuce, mayonnaise and mustard. By the time he was opening a fresh bag of potato chips, a knock came.
His girl was here.
He raced to open the front door. “It’s not locked. Why are you knocking?”
Hallie’s smile was pained, her shoulders stiff. Fear skittered up his spine. He dismissed it. He’d read too much into how he’d been feeling about her already and refused to indulge in further idiocy.
“Come on in and take off all your clothes,” he invited with a grin. “Then you can knock me over with one of those kisses of yours.”
Hallie bit her lip, her throat moving as she swallowed.
Not good,his mind warned.
Shut up, he told it plainly.
He was familiar with this version of Hallie. The serious version who had a hard time talking to him—who could scarcely look at him.
“What’s wrong?” he couldn’t help asking. If she laid it out for him, then he could work with what he knew.
“The reason I came here today,” she started, her tone formal. His stomach sank. He’d had a bad feeling all damn morning and with an opener like that, how could it possibly get better?
“Will you come in first? It’s freezing out there.”
She indulged him and stepped inside, but she didn’t remove her coat. Another sign something was terribly wrong.
“It’s time we wrap things up,” she stated, her tone robotic. “We avoided being entangled over Thanksgiving, but Christmas is a harder holiday to dodge.”
He blinked. What was she talking about?
“We knew this was temporary, so there’s no sense in drawing more attention and speculation from everyone.” Her mouth flinched into a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I had fun, though.”
“Hals—”
She offered her hand. He glared at her outstretched palm and then at her placid face. “Are you offering to shake my hand right now?”
“That’s how this started. Wouldn’t it make sense we end it the same way?”
“Why are we ending at all? Did something happen last night?” He didn’t think Hannah, Cassandra and Presley were against him, but he could be wrong. They would have had to have said something for Hallie to have done a one-eighty.
“Gavin.” She lowered her arm. “I can be professional about this if you can. And I know you can since you are incredibly professional. We’ve had our fun, but we’re going to have to see each other in the workplace again. We have shared clients. I would like to keep sharing clients. I like you.”
Why did her proclamation hurt so much? He liked her, too—a whole hell of a lot—way too much to let her dump him in his foyer.
“You like me,” he repeated numbly, “but you don’t want to have sex with me anymore.”
His mind raced. What had he done wrong? He knew she’d been off-kilter at Mags Dumond’s party, but they’d ironed everything out after. Hallie had spent the night in his arms.
“If Mags got into your head—” he started.
