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That was something new Neil had started. His messages went unanswered, but it was still annoying as fuck.
“Thank you for being upset on my behalf.” My family was so great. I hated that I’d ever doubted them, that I’d ever thought they would turn their backs on me. “And no, not him. There’s this man. We’re just friends. I’ve actually known him for years, since before I made my first movie, but we’ve been spending more time together since I came back, and he’s…intriguing.” I wasn’t sure what word to use other than that.
“Uh-oh.”
“No. Not uh-oh. I don’t like him. It would never work out. He’s not really the kind of man to do relationships. I just got out of a long-term one, and I’m figuring out what the hell I even want out of my life right now.” Though I wasn’t. I was supposed to be doing that, but I hadn’t thought about it at all. I basically pouted around my house or hung out with Declan. My agent had called me three times, but I ignored them all because I knew he’d ask me what was going on and try to pitch projects. He mentioned I might have to do some reshoots for Bound and Determined, but I didn’t have any dates yet.
“You do like him,” Brooke mused.
“I said we’re just friends and that he’s intriguing. That’s it.”
“Is he in the business?”
“No. He was a bartender when I met him. Now he owns the bar. We’ve literally known each other for all these years, and I don’t think he’s ever told anyone. Part of me loves it, and the other part is like…what, I’m not special enough for you to tell your friends about me?” My heart dropped. What had I just said? What the hell did I feel? I wanted to snatch the words back. “Oh my God.”
Brooke laughed.
“Shut up! I can’t believe I said that. Holy shit, part of me is actually annoyed that he hasn’t bragged to the world that he knows Sebastian Cole.”
“It’s really weird when you talk about yourself in the third person and use your last name too.”
Yes, it was. “I’m having a strange epiphany right now. Cut me some slack.” I’d admitted to myself I was jealous of Declan’s friends, but it wasn’t just because I didn’t have that. It was because I wanted…something. I didn’t know what, but something more with Declan. And maybe I always had. Why the fuck had I been sleeping with him for so many years? Why was I so insistent on the two of us becoming friends? I was obsessed with him. And had definitely wanted the Getty to be a date.
I wanted to go on a date with him again.
And maybe meet his friends.
Fuck my life.
“I’m just curious about him,” I tried to tell Brooke and myself. I didn’t think she believed me any more than I did. “How could I not be? We’ve literally been hooking up off and on for ten years.”
“You’ve been having sex with this guy for ten years?” Brooke shrieked.
Oops. I definitely hadn’t planned on telling her that.
“Maybe?” I didn’t make a habit of talking to my family about my sex life. My sister, Brooke, and my brother, Ollie, didn’t share what they got up to, and I didn’t either, but now I was stuck.
“Holy shit, little bro. That’s big. And you must intrigue him too if he’s had sex with you for this many years.”
“Or he just likes orgasms.”
“Are you the only place he can get them?”
“Good point.” I shook my head. “No. It’s not a good point. I don’t need to be thinking that way. I have too much going on in my life. Plus, even if either of us wanted more, which we don’t, how could we ever date? I can’t even make it work with someone in the industry who gets it. How in the hell could I ever have a boyfriend who wasn’t?” Boyfriend and Declan in the same sentence was a dangerous way of thinking. Not that I wanted that. I didn’t. We were just talking. No big deal.
“That breaks my heart,” Brooke said softly. “You deserve more than that. You deserve more than that asshole Neil.”
“Thank you, but we really don’t have to have this conversation. I’m over him. It wasn’t meant to be, and as far as Declan goes—”
“Ooh, sexy name.”
“Brooke! You’re not being helpful!” It was a really sexy name, though. “As far as Declan goes, we used to have sex because it was convenient. Now we’re friends. The art museum wasn’t a date.”
She giggled. “I don’t even know about the art museum, but it was totally a date.”
Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. “We’re just friends. I don’t like him. I’m a tiny bit intrigued by him, made more so by some of the things he says on The Vers.”
