“Hey,” I started and then stopped when her clear eyes fastened on me. Would this fucking teenage schoolboy thing ever go away?
“Hey,” she answered softly, almost hesitantly, as if she knew I wasn’t fooling around anymore.
“I just wanted to say I’m sorry about,” I cleared my throat and lied through my teeth. “I’m sorry about the kiss earlier and, you know, I hope I didn’t cross any boundaries.”
Fucking lies. All of it. It would be a cold day in hell before I was sorry for kissing Georgia King.
Amber was back with our coffee and after she poured it and left, there were a few moments of silence.
“Don’t be sorry,” Georgia said softly. “Cuz I’m not.”
Chapter Eight
Georgia
I spent every single minute of the Fourth of July with Ben. After a totally greasy and yummy breakfast, we watched a parade that passed a few blocks away, and then strolled through Art in the Park, one that featured a ton of cool stuff, as well as music and dance.
The sun didn’t let up, the smell of summer was everywhere, and for the first time in forever I felt…light.
We didn’t kiss again—which was a sin because it’s all I thought about—but the flirting was pretty intense. I caught more than a few people staring at us, though I suppose they might have recognized Ben.
The thought that it was me they recognized crossed my mind, but I quickly tossed it aside. I knew there was stuff online, pictures and video from the night my brain had finally imploded and cracked so wide open there was nothing for me to do but fall in. But it was a pretty far stretch to think that the old couple who turned as we strolled by, or the woman sipping her coffee who paused, or the man with the fat golden retriever recognized me as that crazy girl.
But the flirting.
God, the flirting was addictive. There was a lot of eye contact. There was the soft touch of his hand at my back, the rough pads of his fingers lingering just above my shorts. There was Ben bending close to tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear. There were a lot of suggestive comments and jokes.
And god he smelled good. Like a guy should, not prettied up with expensive cologne.
Hours later I was still buzzing—I was buzzing everywhere—and I mean everywhere. And then I tried to remember the last time I’d had an orgasm and I decided it was pretty pathetic that I couldn’t remember. I decided that Ben would have been the perfect stress reliever.
It was enough to drive a girl crazy because he was right here. In the loft.
He was in the office.
He was in the office right down the hall from me.
And the thing of it was, the thought of him, the smell of him, the idea of being with him was enough to get me off and sometime in the night, there beneath my covers, I used my fingers and the palms of my hands to get the job done.
I came all by myself, with my hands on my skin and Ben in my head. And for the moment it was enough.
In the morning Ben asked me to go with him to meet up with his real estate agent and even though I wanted to, I found myself saying, no. I told him that I was meeting someone and that I couldn’t get out of it.
“Who?” he had asked.
“Just no one,” I replied.
He arched an eyebrow. “A boyfriend?”
“What? No. Just a friend. Seamus.” Seamus was my therapist, but he didn’t have to know that. Just like he didn’t have to know I had no plans to meet anyone.
His eyes narrowed slightly, though there was that half smile on his face, the one that made my insides liquefy. “Seamus, what kind of a name is that? That sounds like something you’d name a cat.”
“That’s what I told him the first time we met.”
He’d grabbed the keys to his rental. “Alright, Georgia, you have a good afternoon with your friend, Seamus, and I’ll see you later?”
I nodded and watched him leave, wondering why I just hadn’t gone with him. I wanted to. And for several long moments after he left I stood in the middle of the loft, hating the silence, which was weird, because for most of the last year it was all I craved. Silence. That sweet abyss of nothingness.
But I suppose it was for the best because I had so many other things to do. You know, like paint my toenails, or figure out how I was going to fill the empty canvas that stared at me from across the room.