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Now, she felt oddly aimless. Going home to sit in front of her computer to deliver her work to her clients didn’t hold the same appeal. Grinding for grinding’s sake was pretty depressing when there wasn’t an end goal.
She dropped her arm down to her side and let out a deep breath. “I think I want a boyfriend,” she announced.
Lucy and Camilla stopped talking and stared at her. Lucy was the first to move. She reached over and squeezed Amelia’s forearm, softness suffusing her features. “Yeah? That’s good! You haven’t wanted to date in so long. You think you’re ready to put yourself out there again?”
Camilla squealed excitedly. “Have you signed up for any apps?”
“Ugh,” Amelia replied.Thatwas not an enticing prospect.
Lucy made a sympathetic noise. “You don’t need to use an app if you don’t want to. The right guy will come along, Amelia.”
“Someone who understands you,” Camilla added. She brightened. “What about Ben? You think he’s cute, right?”
Amelia groaned. “Remember when I asked him for his number when he first started working for you? He was confused and gave me the bakery number, then explained the lead times for baked goods. He thought I wanted a cake, Camilla. He didn’t even understand that I was trying to flirt with him. It was humiliating.”
“That was two years ago.” Camilla beamed, undeterred. “You just need to get back on the horse and try again.”
“We’ve barely spoken more than two words to each other since then other than me asking him for coffee and him grunting out an acknowledgment. And I turn as red as a tomato whenever he’s in the same room as me.”
“Aww,” Lucy added, utterly unhelpful.
Bitterness sluiced through Amelia’s stomach. Benwascute. She’d love to go out with him. She knew he worked as a barista part-time while he tried to develop a mobile app game. He was smart and brainy and loved data, just like Amelia.
But he wasn’t interested in her.
Amelia stared at a fluffy white cloud on a journey across the sky. “I’d settle for someone who doesn’t find my personality revolting. He doesn’t have to understand me. Someone who doesn’t care about sex too much, so they’re not disappointed by me.”
There was a short silence, then Camilla let out a growl. “I’d like to find Josh and wring his stupid little neck.”
Amelia bunched her lips to the side, snorting at the sound of her ex-boyfriend’s name. They’d broken up six years ago. It had been rough, but a lot of time had passed. “It’s not just him,” she said. “I haven’t been on a date in over a year, and before that, they were all disasters. I’m just not good at it. Dating. Guys. Sex. I’m just not…attractive.”
Yesterday, she’d felt attractive for a moment, with Leo. He’d even told her he found her beautiful, though he obviously said it to annoy her. But then she’d seen how easily he lied about her being his fiancée, and she began doubting everything.
“You are amazing, and beautiful, and kind, and smart, and the best friend ever,” Lucy said, still gripping Amelia’s forearm. “You’re sexy as hell in your own spreadsheet-loving, data-analyzing way.”
“And don’t ever forget it.” Camilla nodded once, like it settled everything.
Amelia felt that sliver of space between her and her friends grow. She wanted them to understand that it wasn’t that easy for her. She couldn’t flirt. She couldn’t act all doe-eyed and cute. She just wasn’t… It just didn’t work for her! Guys were simply not interested.
To her horror, tears pricked her eyes. She squeezed them shut to hide the evidence until Camilla let out a low whistle.
“Sit up, Amelia. There’s a Grade-A hottie jogging toward us. You want a boyfriend? You want to flirt? Here’s your chance. That horse is galloping your way, and you just got to get up there and ride it, baby.”
Amelia snorted, sitting up and scanning the park to see who Camilla was talking about. “What, I’m supposed to just wave my arms, and he’ll come begging me to saddle—”
“Hey,” Leo said, jogging to a stop in front of them. “I thought that was you.”
He stood before them wearing a pair of black athletic shorts and a sheen of sweat. The sun stroked his muscular body like even its rays loved to touch him. He glistened, the muscles over his ribs shifting as he reached up to push a strand of damp hair off his forehead. His eyes were as green as the grass beneath Amelia’s body, and they were currently occupied studying the lines of the sports bra that dug into her chest.
“Did you just do a workout?” he asked after a pause, which Amelia belatedly realized she’d spent shamelessly ogling his sweaty, beautiful body.
She rolled her tongue back into her mouth. “If you could call it a workout,” she answered, shading her eyes with a hand. Gosh, he was gorgeous. Shadows played over his chest and abs, highlighting all the carved lines of his muscles. She hadn’t realized people could actually have bodies like that outside of movies and magazines.
“What would you call it?” he asked, a grin playing over his lips.
“Torture,” she answered.
Lucy and Camilla watched the exchange like a game of tennis, their heads shifting from one to the other. Camilla cleared her throat, and Leo blinked, looking at her for the first time.
