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Her laugh was short, but it had more life in it this time, at least. “Thanks, Chase.”
“You don’t need to thank me.”
We sat for a moment in heavy silence. I just couldn’t imagine how you ended a relationship like theirs. One with history and children. But, I guess it wasn’t necessarily ending. They were going to therapy together, you didn’t do that with someone you wanted to walk away from. I had to believe they’d work it out. If I didn’t, my faith in relationships would hit an all time low.
Mack pulledup in front of my building. I needed a shower and more sleep, pronto. But first—
“Is everything okay?” I asked, because the silence on the drive had been less of our usual companionable comfort and more of an awkward third passenger all the way from Jersey.
“Sure, of course, why wouldn’t we be?” he said with an easy shrug. Was I imagining it? Maybe it was just me feeling all awkward because waking up wrapped around my best friend had felt more natural than I expected. More natural than it should have. It should have been strange, shouldn’t it? Awkward. Not good. Not right.
“No reason!” I said with way too much cheer.Dial it down, Chase, dial it down. “We’re good. Great, we’re great. I’m hungover.”
“You and me both.” He ran a hand over his face, I could hear the scratch of his stubble from across the car and my fingers twitched against my palms.
“I’ll see you later?”
“No!” I all but barked at him. “No you will not. It’s your night off.”
“And yet you’ll be coming in on Tuesday.”
“Yes, because I had last night off.”
“So did I.” So argumentative. It would be frustrating if it didn’t also make me want to kiss him. Whoa! No, no kissing. There would be no more kissing.
“Only one of us can be the workaholic, and that’s me. Don’t go messing with our well-tested formula.”
“Heaven forbid.” His lopsided smirk told me he knew that my heart was beating a little too fast, and I wasn’t just talking about work.
I climbed out of his enormous car and waved as he pulled away from the curb.
I needed to get my head on straight. I couldn’t be going around fantasizing about kissing Mack. That was a disaster waiting to happen. It didn’t matter that the memory of it still made my insides all squirmy and hot. What mattered was crossing that line again was not a good idea. Once could be written off as an accident. A fluke. A never to be repeated incident. That was where it needed to stop. Like I’d said, we had a well-tested formula, and it did not need to be messed with.
“Heads up!” The call echoed down the stairs when I was halfway to the third floor landing. There was a thump from above and a moment later a stray couch cushion came bouncing past me. I could have stopped it. Instead, I watched it go. The rogue cushion was followed by footsteps and then there was a tall man on the stairs in front of me. Or maybe he looked tall because he was a couple of steps higher than I was.
“If you’re after a cushion, it went that way.” I pointed behind me.
“Thanks. At least it was soft furnishings, right? Not, like, a skillet.”
“Or a really big dildo.”
His shocked laugh made me realize what I’d said. Why the fuck did I say that? I blamed the hangover and the persistent thoughts of kissing Mack for making my brain a useless pile of mush. “Okay, well I’m just going to …”
“Sure, sorry.”
We both stepped the same way. Once. Twice. Three times.
“Stay,” I said and he gave me a salute as I stepped around him and carried on up the stairs. When I got to the landing there was another guy sitting on a couch that I couldn’t get past. He scrambled up as he saw me glaring from the shadows.
“Hi. Hey, sorry.” The apartment door across from mine was open.
“Whatever.” I climbed over the arm of the couch and went to my door, kicking it closed once inside and dropping my bag on the floor with a thud.
Weird. Fucking. Day.
Pip and Tim were sleeping in different rooms and I was havingfeelingsfor Mack. I told myself that some sleep would put things right.
I didn’t believe it one bit.
