My mind’s still half-heartedly warring for control. My body makes the unilateral decision to say, “Then don’t.”
“We have to talk about this first,” he says. “Things are complicated for me right now.” And yet we’re still clamoring for each other. Charlie’s hands raze over my thighs, squeezing so hard I might bruise. My nails are in his back, urging him close. His warm mouth skims over my shoulder, his tongue and teeth finding my pulse at the base of my throat.
I nod. “Then talk.”
Another sharp kiss, his teeth hard against my lip, his hands hard against my ass. “It’s hard to think in words right now, Nora.”
His hands wind into my hair, his mouth slipping against the corner of mine, his breath shallow and frantic. I lift myself against him and one of his hands curls tight against my spine, his groan crackling through me like a dozen bolts of lightning heading straight to my center.
Everything else is briefly obliterated as I roll myself against him, and he returns the favor, the friction between us electric.
“God, Nora,” he hisses.
Something like I know slips out of me, right into his mouth. His fingers dig under the lace at the sides of my hips, burrowing into my skin. I’ve never felt someone else’s frustration so palpably; I’ve never been so frustrated. I’m seeing spots, everything lost behind a wall of need.
And then my phone rings from the rocks.
All at once, reality crashes in from all sides, a rock slide of thoughts my lust has been holding back. I push back from Charlie, gasping out, “Dusty!”
He blinks at me through the dark, chest heaving. “What?”
“Shit! No! No!” I swim for the rocks, the ringer echoing through the dark.
“What’s wrong?” Charlie asks, close behind me.
“I was supposed to call Dusty. Hours ago.” I haul myself out of the water and rush for the phone. I miss the last ring by seconds, and when I dial back, it goes straight to voicemail. “Shit!”
How could I do that? How could I just forget about my oldest, most sensitive, highest-earning client? How could I let myself get this distracted?
I dial again and get her voicemail message. “Hey, Dusty!” I say brightly after the beep. “Sorry about that. I had a . . .”
What could I possibly be busy with this late at night? No respectable meeting, certainly.
“Something came up,” I say. “But I’m free now, so give me a call back!”
I hang up, then skim Libby’s string of messages, increasingly frantic requests for me to confirm that Blake hasn’t fed me to a wood chipper. My heart rockets into my throat, and hot, prickling shame rises to the surface of my skin. On my way home, I text Libby.
“Everything okay?”
I turn and find Charlie pulling on his pants, his shirt bundled in one hand. “What happened?” he asks.
I wasn’t there, I think. They needed me and I wasn’t there. Just like—I cut myself off before my mind can boomerang back there, say instead, “I don’t do this.”
Charlie’s brow arches. “Do what?”
“Everything that just happened,” I say. “All of it. This isn’t how I operate.”
He half laughs. “And what, you think this is a pattern for me?”
“No,” I say. “I mean, maybe. That’s the point! How would I even know?” His smile falls, and my chest stings in response. I shake my head. “It’s this book, Frigid, and this trip—I started thinking I could just go with this, but . . .” I lift my phone at my side, like this explains everything. Libby’s pre-baby crisis, Dusty’s intense insecurity, not to mention all my other clients, everyone who’s counting on me. “I can’t afford a distraction right now.”
“Distraction.” He repeats the word emptily, like he’s unfamiliar with the concept. Probably he is. For a solid decade, I was.
Prioritization. Compartmentalization. Qualification. These things have always worked for me in the past, but now just one sprinkle of recklessness has distracted me from both my sister and my prize client. After what happened with Jakob, I should’ve known I couldn’t trust myself.
I force down the hard knot in my throat. “I need to be focused,” I say. “I owe that to Dusty.”
When I’m distracted, I miss things. When I miss things, bad things happen.
Charlie studies me for a long moment. “If that’s what you want.”
“It is,” I say.
His brow slightly lifts, his eyes reading the obvious lie. It doesn’t matter. Want is not a good way to make decisions.
“And besides,” I add, “things are complicated for you anyway, right?”
After a beat, he sighs. “More every second.”
Still, neither of us moves. We’re in a silent standoff, waiting to see if the dam holds, the pressure building between us, my cells all still vibrating under his gaze.
Charlie looks away first. He rubs the side of his jaw. “You’re right. I don’t know why it’s so hard for me to accept this can’t be anything.” He snatches my dress off the rock and holds it out.
My stomach sinks, but I accept the dress. “Thanks.”
Without looking at me, he says dryly, “What are colleagues for?”
16
I CRAWL OUT OF bed at nine, my head pounding and my stomach feeling like a half-wrecked boat lost at sea. Apparently I drank enough to poison myself, without even getting past tipsy. One of the many ways that being thirty-two absolutely rules.
Libby’s already moving around downstairs, humming to herself. I’m not surprised—despite her panicky messages last night, she was already fast asleep and loudly snoring by the time I got home. Dusty had finally called me back, and I’d paced, damp, through the meadow for an hour, convincing her Part Two of Frigid couldn’t possibly be as bad as she was convinced it was. Bleary-eyed, I check my phone, and sure enough, the new pages are waiting in my inbox.
I am not ready for that. After pulling on leggings and a sports bra, I stagger outside, rubbing heat into my arms as I cross the meadow. I shamble through the woods, clutching my stomach, until the nausea eases enough to jog.
Okay, I think. This is going all right. It’s more of a positive affirmation than an observation. I follow the sloping path through the woods to the fence and make it three more paces before This is going all right becomes Oh, god, no. I pitch over my thighs and vomit into the mud just as a voice cuts through the morning: “You okay, ma’am?”