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“You mean how he made your toes curl with that kiss? I think you need to tell us about it again. Slowly, and with more detail,” Cindy says with a twinkle in her eyes, the paperwork forgotten as she rests her elbows on the table and leans towards me.
“It was all right.” I shrug, quickly snatching up the new glass of wine our waitress just put down in front of me. Then I grab her arm to stop her from walking away.
“Keep them coming. Don’t even ask. If you see my glass is empty, just make another one magically appear.”
She laughs and nods before moving to another table to take an order.
“It was more than just all right.” Belle laughs. “I could hear you blushing through the phone when you told me.”
“I did not blush. I never blush! Blushing is for pussies!” I argue, already feeling my cheeks heat with a fucking blush.
Goddamn it.
“I told you that one of these days you’d find your Prince Charming,” Cindy smiles.
“He’s not a Prince Charming. He’s . . .”
For the first time when talking about Eric, I find it impossible to call him annoying.
“He stood up for you in front of the douche dick. He made you feel sexy when that asshole stripped you of everything within the first few seconds of seeing him again,” Belle reminds me.
“Exactly! He stood up for me, he made me feel sexy. I let a man fight my battles for me when I should have been able to stand on my own two feet and give Sebastian hell. That’s not who I am,” I mutter with a shake of my head.
“Maybe it is,” Cindy says softly. “Maybe you just needed to find the right man. One who doesn’t take your power or your independence away. Once who lifts you up instead of putting you down. One who is proud to stand by your side and fight whatever battle he can, not because he doesn’t think you can do it on your own, but because he can’t handle standing by and doing nothing. Because he truly cares about you.”
I scoff at her, taking a sip of my wine to ease the tightness in my throat.
“I feel like him sticking up for you isn’t the real problem right now,” Belle muses. “If it was, you wouldn’t have let him kiss you. And you certainly wouldn’t have made a joke after it ended. You might have lost your nerve when it came to telling Sebastian off, but you’d never do that with Eric. You would have just kicked him in the balls and told him you could fight your own battles. My Spidey senses are tingling.”
Belle narrows her eyes at me, studying my face.
“Those aren’t Spidey senses. That’s called being drunk,” I deadpan, wishing she weren’t looking at me so closely.
“You two have talked the last few days since the kiss, right?” Belle asks.
“Yes. Well, via text for the most part. He has an office in town for his yacht-rental thing, and he’s had a lot of work to do there. But he stopped by yesterday morning to bring me some mail since I had everything forwarded to his address at the docks.”
It’s true we’ve been talking pretty much all day, every day. He’s still sending me stupid pictures of Derrick in sweaters, and I went to another goat yoga class and sent him a picture of goat poop.
Whatever. Don’t judge me. It’s good to keep the guy on his toes so he doesn’t get out of line.
“And have you talked about the kiss?” Cindy questions.
Shit. Shit, fuck, damn.
When he dropped off my mail at the boat, I stood there in the kitchen, gripping a cup of coffee in my hands so tightly I thought it would shatter, holding my breath and waiting for him to say something about the kiss. I figured maybe he didn’t want to do it over text, and since we were finally face-to-face again, it would happen. Sadly, it did not. He joked with me about the fact that I’m now in love with goat yoga, and then he left.
“No. What’s there to talk about? It was just a stupid kiss. And it was done for the sole benefit of getting under Sebastian’s skin, since he was acting like a giant tool,” I tell them with a roll of my eyes.
“THAT’S IT!” Belle suddenly shouts, pointing her finger at me. “You are such a lying liar pants, you Liar McLiarson! Also, I think you might be right. I’m pretty sure I’m drunk.”
She sets her wine glass down on the table and takes a couple of deep breaths before speaking again.
“You know damn well Eric didn’t kiss you for Sebastian’s benefit. Didn’t he whisper something to about not being able to wait any longer before he did it?” she asks.
