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But I understood that there was a fine balance between taking care of your body, and even taking pride in it, and being obsessed with it.
Alaric was obsessed.
Something we all surmised maybe stemmed from his years exotic dancing, when his income and identity depended on how good he looked.
I could see how that kind of thing could warp your view of yourself. Especially after the job ended, and you suddenly weren’t getting praised over your looks all the time.
“Eddie is cooking,” I told him. “Riff and Raff are crashing,” I added.
To that, he nodded, but made his way upstairs before me instead of going out to be social.
Shaking my head, I made my way to my room as well, grabbing some clothes, and making my way to the bathroom.
Some part of me didn’t want to shower, to wash the chocolate and coffee scent of the random woman off of me. But that was so insane, I made myself get under the cool spray, and scrub body wash over me.
The last thing I needed to do was to get sentimental over some random chick I was never going to see again.
CHAPTER FOUR
Rynn
“Rynn!” Josie, my best friend slash employee slash right-hand-girl slash my voice of reason hissed as I sat in front of her desk, legs kicked up on the edge, sipping a much-needed Big Gulp of soda. One of my—admittedly, many—vices.
“Oh, come on. Fucking a guy against an abandoned building is hardly even the most shocking thing I have ever done.” I mean, were we forgetting that time I went streaking through a casino to draw the cameras and security guys in my direction so they never suspected why I had really been in their establishment? Men tended to lose all their common sense at the sight of a little T&A.
“You don’t even know his name!” Josie insisted.
Josie was the antithesis to me.
Where I was tall and bottom-heavy, she was short and sporting a rack men would cry over and dedicate sonnets to. Where I was dark-haired and allergic to all things color, she was a strawberry blonde who loved bright, feminine shades. Where I was often uninhibited, brash, and bold, she was straight-laced, shy, and careful.
We made a great team.
But I was ninety percent sure that if she started to go gray before the appropriate age, every single silver strand would be thanks to me.
That was what I brought to a friendship.
Stress.
But a fuckton of fun stories.
And the absolute best places to eat and drink.
Not that Josie indulged much in booze, but when she did occasionally let loose over bottomless cherry-lime margs and chips and salsa, she always enjoyed some story of my antics from before her time.
She’d only come into my life two years before. And let’s just say that there was a lot of debauchery in the years prior to that.
It was hard to believe it had been such a short partnership. I didn’t know how the hell I’d functioned without her in my life.
Josie was the much-needed tether that kept me from being swept away with any random bad idea.
“Yeah, that was a little unlike me,” I admitted.
I mean, no. I wasn’t someone who held themselves back from enjoying adult glandular-to-glandular contact. I had no shame when it came to my sexuality. That said, yeah, I did always know thenamesof my partners. In fact, because I was busy and didn’t have a lot of patience with finding partners, I usually ended up having friends-with-benefits situations. I had two previous boyfriends that I always go back to when I needed a quick tour of the sheets. It made life easier that way.
“Did he catch your name?” Josie asked, still hung up on the name thing.
“No,” I admitted. “He did ask,” I clarified.
