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He shrugs again. “Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but not completely untrue,” he continues. “If I were to play armchair shrink, I'd say one of your biggest problems – aside from you needing to get out of your own way – is that you're scared.”
“Now that is some bullshit. There's very little I'm scared of in this world.”
“When it comes to physical threats, that's very true,” he says. “Your courage in squaring up for a fight is unquestioned. But when it comes to emotional attachment, you're as scared as a five-year-old is of the monster under their bed.”
“The word is actually uninterested,” I correct him. “Not afraid.”
A slow, knowing smile creeps across his face. “If you say so.”
“I do. I say so.”
He shrugs, gets to his feet, and I remain silent as he heads for the door, turning everything he said over in my mind. He opens the door but stops and turns back to face me. There's an inscrutable expression on his face, but I can't mistake the concern I see in his eyes. Obviously, his paranoid lawyer persona has reasserted itself.
“You're sure about her?” he asks. “That she's not going to be a problem.”
“As sure as I can be.”
“Yeah, that's not real comforting,” he chuckles.
“I wouldn't worry about it until you have to,” I tell him.
He nods and then walks out, closing the door behind him, leaving me alone with my thoughts. Can I trust her? Deep down, I'm pretty sure I can. I’m pretty sure she feels the same way I do about last night. Even if a relationship doesn’t work out, I know she wanted it just as much as I did. Our connection was too strong for her not to. And she’s not the kind of person who’d retaliate with a lawsuit like that if things went south. I just know it. But again, you can never be one hundred percent about anybody.
As far as what Pete was saying – I don't deny I have feelings for her. At the moment, they're simply undefined. I want to explore them, of course. I'm just worried that things are going to move too quickly and a smaller fuck-up will snowball into a larger one – a fuck-up that could require us all to pay a heavy price. Me most of all.
This is why I try to avoid things like emotions and relationships. Fucking hell.
Chapter Twenty-One
Emily
“What in the hell was I thinking?”
Olivia grins. “You obviously weren't,” she giggles, but is quick to add, “but that's not always a bad thing, girl.”
I round on her, a potent blend of shame, embarrassment, and anger – at myself, of course – rushing through me like a raging river.
“How can you say it's not a bad thing?” I question. “I slept with my boss.”
She shrugs. “Technically speaking, sure,” she replies. “But you also slept with an old college boyfriend – one you obviously still have feelings for.”
“I don't know what I feel for him,” I sigh. It’s about the best retort I can come up with.
Olivia chuckles. “You feel enough for him that you stuck around,” she notes. “I wouldn't say that's any small matter. In fact, that you had the whole big conversation of why you two broke up in the first place, I think, says a hell of a lot about how you feel.”
I pace around the living room, arms folded over my chest, knowing I can't really say anything to that. My body is still aching and sore in places I didn't know I could be achy or sore in. The dull aches I feel, though, aren't unpleasant. They remind me of what I did the night before and how much pleasure I felt. They remind me of him. Of Aaron.
It's like every time I move and feel one of my muscles cry out, I see his face and have to physically keep myself from smiling. That's the last thing I want or need to do in front of Olivia – it'll only encourage her.
“Can you honestly stand there and tell me you don't know what you feel for him?” Olivia asks, arching an eyebrow at me.
“I honestly don't,” I confess. “I mean, I'm into him. Obviously. If I wasn't into him, I never would have slept with him.”
“Obviously,” she repeats, her tone mocking.
“But I don't know what it means,” I explain. “I mean, I don't know if like, for him, it was a one-night thing, or if he's expecting something more. Or for that matter, if he even wants something more.”
Olivia sits at the kitchen table, sipping from a bottle of soda, her eyes following me as I pace. I don't know how in the hell she can be so calm and unflappable when I feel like I just took a giant blowtorch not just to my reputation, but my whole life.
