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Then I would take Mackey to the dog park every three days or so, something that he pretended to hate, but actually enjoyed. He even let some strangers scratch him behind the ears. He was warming up. And it seemed like he was resentful that it was hurting his street cred, even if he secretly enjoyed it.
And I had even made plans tonight – as crazy as this one might seem – to have Gunner over for dinner. He had made it a point to check in on me here and there. I woke up one morning to him raking my front yard. When I’d asked him what he was doing, he had shrugged and informed me that if my lazy ass wouldn’t do it, then he would have to. Another time, he stopped into my work on the way to the office, telling me that Fenway was demanding another game night and that if I didn’t agree, he was going to gag, bind, and drag me there himself because he couldn’t take the man’s bitching for another minute.
It was a weird friendship, but we were somehow getting along. I guess because I knew exactly how he was and was okay with it. He sensed that I had no real desire to change him, so he could just be his asshole self around me.
Tonight, I had asked him over for food – since he was a prime example of when older women would claim men think with their stomachs – and a movie. Just so I wouldn’t be alone every night.
I guess, from this clusterfuck of a situation, some good had come of it.
I was seeing a different way to live my life.
And I was liking it.
Figuring it was Gunner calling to ask what kind of beer I liked – But not that hard cider shit. I won’t be caught dead buying that – I hit the speaker button with my pinkie, my fingers covered in starch and ricotta.
“There’s nothing wrong with hard cider,” I told the phone as I reached for the paper towel in my pocket to wipe off my hands.
“Never said there was.”
So, okay.
That was not Gunner.
And as much as I liked Gunner, this voice was even more welcome. Even just hearing it sent a weird shiver of anticipation through my system.
“Oh, hey,” I said, scrubbing harder so I could pick up the phone, get his voice closer to me. “This is early for you.”
“Long day,” he said, sounding beat.
“You sound tired.”
“Fucking exhausted,” he admitted.
“Then why are you calling me?” I asked, dropping down on the sofa. The lasagne could wait. It was at least another two hours before Gunner was going to show up anyway. “You should get some sleep.”
“I will,” he said, followed by a short silence. “Wanted to talk to you first.”
Oh, my poor heart.
There was simply no denying that over the past week and a half… or was it two weeks? I wasn’t sure. But, yeah, there was no denying that my feelings for Quin were no longer friendly. If they ever had been just that.
I waited for his call. I stressed if it was too late. I saved the texts he sent intermittently. I hung on his every last word. From the stories of his childhood and his sister and parents to the ones about the endless construction mishaps on his office, and everything in between.
I was getting to know him.
And what there was to know, yeah, I really liked.
Really.
Like, when he called, I got a flutter in my belly kind of liked.
Like, when I was alone in bed after one of our calls, I would think of him, and my body would heat; my breasts would swell; my sex would clench hard in need.
It was crazy the kind of connection you could build with a person half a world away.
“What did you want to talk about?” I asked, knowing he had to be tight-lipped about his business overseas, so much so that I didn’t even know where in Russia he was. He was usually the one steering the conversation, asking things of me, then telling me things about himself as well.
“How I can’t stop fucking thinking about getting you under me again.”
Oh, wow.
Okay then.
Yeah.
I hadn’t expected that.
He had been, much to my disappointment at times, nothing but friendly, casual, appropriate in our talks. Nothing he had ever said could be interpreted as anything other than common conversation.
I had been assuming – with a pit in my stomach at the idea – that he genuinely wanted nothing more from me in that way, that maybe once was enough for him, that maybe it wasn’t as good for him as it had been for me.
My mind drove itself in nauseating circles about all the possible reasons he just wanted to talk to me.
I guess it never actually occurred to me that he genuinely just wanted to get to know me. Before we let ourselves go there again.
