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“It’s no trouble,” he says. “I’m probably not the target demographic, anyway.”
“Huh?”
“For your podcast.”
“Right. No. Probably not.”
“What’s the latest episode about?”
I have to look out the window as I answer him. I have to stop gazing, drinking in every detail of his strong-featured face or the muscles of his forearms bulging through the fabric of his suit jacket, begging me to squeeze and feel how firm he is.
“Unrequited love,” I say. “What it is and how to deal with it. Stuff like that.”
“And how do you deal with it?” he asks with fresh hunger in his voice, causing me to turn back to him.
It gets me thinking about the West Coast… if he has a woman over there, somebody he wants but can’t have.
It’s crazy that Bryson could want someone else without them wanting him, but how else to explain that hunger?
Or maybe it’s Tiffany’s theory, the one she offered soon after Bryson left.
Maybe he had an affair with Eva. Or tried to.
I asked her never to say that again, but as the months passed, I wondered if there was something to that revolting idea.
“I guess I’m still trying to figure that out.”
He glances at me. I think his eyes flit to my chest and legs, but I must be imagining it.
“It sounds like you’re speaking from experience,” he says, his voice getting husky.
“Oh, I don’t know.”
It’s not much of an answer, but I can’t think of anything else to say.
“You don’t have a boyfriend?” he asks.
I laugh softly. “You sound surprised.”
He shrugs his massive, powerful shoulders. “Young women like to date.”
The vague answer makes me think he doesn’t really care. He’s just making conversation. It would be a mistake to latch onto every word, every breathy syllable, as though it meant something.
“No,” I tell him. “I don’t have a boyfriend. If I did, the love wouldn’t be unrequited, would it?”
“So thereissomebody?”
He stops at another red light. This time, when he looks at me, it’s like he’s going to reach over and grab my leg. I want him to do it badly, even as I wonder what might happen afterward. Would I be up to it? Could I give him what he wants?
What he…what?He doesn’twantanything from me.
“Sort of,” I murmur. “Not really. It doesn’t matter. It would never work out.”
“Why not?” he presses.
“It just wouldn’t,” I say, folding my arms.
His eyes flit to my chest again when I do that, as if he likes what he sees.
