He’d lived a long time with that kind of circumstantial peace. Even his previous relationships didn’t take up a lot of his emotional bandwidth.
But all of that had changed with Vivian, and he couldn’t seem to change it back.
He’d made an absolute fool of himself on the sidewalk with Vivian the other day. He felt like cringing every time he remembered it—and he couldn’t keep from replaying it repeatedly in his mind. She’d seen beneath the surface to what he’d always tried to hide. And although he’d covered it as well as he could, he wasn’t convinced she didn’t suspect now that he had an interest in her far beyond what he’d indicated before.
Which would be fine. Which would be no problem. Were she interested in him too.
But she wasn’t. She’d apparently hooked up with Tim Grueber, and the pairing was lasting a lot longer than he’d expected.
He’d thought they’d go out once. Vivian would find him nice but kind of dull. Then she’d move on to someone else, as was her habit for the past few months. But she hadn’t done it yet.
Today was Saturday, but he was behind on his self-imposed deadlines, so he had to work most of the day today to catch up. Fortunately, Vivian had already been in for about twenty minutes this morning. She’d come over to his table and chatted for a little while, looking bright and friendly and warm and pretty and like everything he wanted. To his relief, he’d managed to keep his composure, and he was relieved that she probably wouldn’t be around much more today.
She usually had other things to do on Saturdays, so he’d have a respite from seeing her and pining after her like a besotted teenager.
By three o’clock, he’d gotten a lot of words down and had enough momentum for at least another hour of writing. He knew exactly what needed to happen in this scene, so he didn’t have to kill time figuring out what the characters were going to do next.
Focused on the words that were flowing from his mind to his fingers to his keyboard, he didn’t even notice immediately when someone new came into the coffee shop.
His brain vaguely processed that it was a couple. A man and a woman. And they made their way to the counter to put in their orders. But he didn’t look up to identify any details about them.
They didn’t matter to him, after all. All that mattered right now was getting these words down and finishing this chapter.
So he was completely oblivious of who had walked in until they’d picked up their coffee drinks and walked over to his table. They were actually standing above him before he glanced up.
The first thing he saw was Vivian. The soft curves of her smiling face. The enchanting dimple on her chin. The fresh look of her skin. The sensual sweep of her hair and her neck.
Vivian, standing right next to Tim, who was giving him a friendly smile and obviously clueless about the rush of feelings that were crashing over Rick at the moment.
“Hey,” Tim said. “You must have been wrapped up in writing. You didn’t even see us here.”
“Oh. Yeah. No, I didn’t. Sorry. I was on a roll.” Rick blinked and attempted to gain control of his mind. And his heart, which was galloping like crazy. And his eyes, which were having trouble turning away from Vivian’s face.
“We didn’t mean to interrupt,” she said, almost gently. “We won’t distract you long. Just wanted to say hi.”
“Oh. Yeah. Hi.”
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant conversation he was making right now.
“How’s the book going?” Tim asked, moving his coffee cup from one hand to the other. It became clear why when he reached over and smoothed a strand of hair back from Vivian’s face.
The surge of resentment that hit Rick at the intimate little gesture made his skin flush hot and his muscles all tense up. He actually had to swallow over a growling sound.
It was wrong. Utterly wrong. That Tim was touching her like that.
No one should be touching Vivian but him.
Rick did his best to suppress the wave of possessive anger, but it took him longer than it should have to control his voice. “It’s fine. Going. That’s all I can ask at this point.”
Tim nodded and looked like he was trying to think of something else to say. Usually Rick was a better participant in conversation, but at the moment containing his feelings was taking all his energy.
“Okay,” Vivian said, her eyes moving from Tim’s face to Rick’s. “We’ll let you get back to your work. We just wanted to say hi.”
“Glad you did,” he managed to mumble, giving Tim a semblance of a smile. Then he focused on his laptop screen and took a deep breath as they walked to a table on the other side of the room.
Space was good. It felt like he was bristling. He wasn’t usually like that, so he didn’t have a lot of strategies for dealing with the jealousy.
He didn’t like it.
He needed to do better.
He’d never been a possessive asshole, and he didn’t want to become one now, not over a woman whom he’d never even dated, much less had any sort of claim to.
He pretended to write but was mostly giving himself an inner lecture for the next hour. He probably should have just left, but that felt like giving into feelings he shouldn’t be having in the first place. So he stuck it out, trying not to glance over at their table every fifteen seconds and trying not to resent the fact that Vivian had apparently forgotten he even existed.
She seemed to be having a good time. At least she was relaxed and laughing and chatting with her typical cheerfulness. She didn’t have that particular glow he associated with her—the one that was like sunshine radiating from within—but he tried not to read too much into that.
After all, he was probably imagining that she glowed brighter when she was with him than when she was with Tim.
To his immense relief, Tim and Vivian got up after just an hour and bused their tables. He couldn’t hear their conversation, but he guessed that Vivian said she was staying for a few minutes to talk to her friend, who was working behind the counter this afternoon. This speculation was affirmed when Tim said goodbye and walked out of the coffee shop.
But before he did, he leaned down and gave Vivian a kiss on the lips.
It wasn’t much of a kiss. Light. Shallow. Mostly casual. It didn’t matter, though. It caused an explosion of jealous fury inside him, so intense it drove him to his feet.
He did manage not to act on it. He didn’t go over and yank Tim away from Vivian by force and then sweep her up into his arms and carry her away.
After all, he wasn’t a caveman. Or an asshole. Or a teenager driven by hormones.
But how the hell was a mature, reasonable, modern man supposed to handle irrational feelings like this.
The only thing he could do was get out of there, so he saved his progress, put up his laptop, and took his empty coffee cup back up to the counter.
To get there, he had to pass by Vivian. She was chatting happily with Megan, who evidently had time to talk since they weren’t very busy right now.
Rick resisted the urge to put his hand on Vivian’s back to move her out of the way and instead just murmured, “Excuse me.” The word came out a lot colder than he intended.
He’d deposited his coffee cup when he realized Vivian was standing in his path, glaring at him. “No, I won’t excuse you. What was that about?”