“Together.” I echo the words in a ragged whisper.
“Em, don’t give up on love only because it’s scary. If it didn’t scare you a little, it wouldn’t be love. And love is worth the risk.”
“You think so?”
“I know so.” She giggles. “Remember, not that long ago I was with you on the love-is-stupid boat. But then I met Harry and all that changed.” She nudges me with a shoulder. “Maybe you just needed to meet the right person.”
“You mean Oliver.” Just the feeling of his name on my lips is enough to send a delicious shiver prickling down my chest, over my belly, landing in my clit.
She grins. “I do. And even if he’s not the love of your life, what’s the harm of having a little consensual fun with him?”
Love of your life. Kate’s words haul back my thoughts from the car with jarring alacrity. About how I didn’t long for sex with Oliver — I wanted him to make love to me.
“But Kate,” I rasp, clutching at her hand with trembling fingers, “what if I want more than consensual fun? What if I want all of him, even though we just met?”
“If you’re looking for someone to talk you out of the possibility of experiencing love at first sight, you came to the wrong person.” She leans forward, voice growing in intensity. “Because if that’s what you’re feeling for this man, I think you should go for it.”
“And if I’ve already messed it up?”
“Then you go to him and ask for forgiveness. What have you got to lose?”
My pride.
My dignity.
My ability to show my face at Shotgun City Fitness ever again.
I have a litany of answers at the ready. But before I can give voice to any of them, I realize that none of them matter much compared to the privilege of having Oliver in my life.
I need to find him and make this right, any way that I can. Otherwise I will forever regret not trying.
“I have to go.” I spring to my feet, feeling as renewed as I do afraid.
Kate smiles, slow and knowing. “Yeah you do,” she says. “Go get ‘im.”
Oliver
I fucked up.
There’s no doubt about it.
Otherwise why would Emmy have said she was going to the bathroom, only to slink from the ladies’ room the second she thought I wasn’t looking? I saw her just about flat out running from the building — and from me.
But then I think about the way her body felt moving over my length after months of dreaming about the girl with zero expectation of ever getting her, and I can’t help but smile.
Because as tawdry and illicit as it might be to fuck a woman in a dive bar alley the first day you’ve met her, it felt like anything but.
It felt like everything I’ve been wanting and thought I’d missed out on. It felt like magic and heat, like sunlight breaking through the clouds after the long gray of winter.
And it certainly didn’t seem like just a quick screw. It was more. Much more. The doorway to a different future than the one currently waiting for me.
At least, it might have been, if I wasn’t sitting alone at a sticky table at the bar wondering what the hell to do next.
If I knew more about Emmy than her name, I’d go after her. There’s no question about that. I have to physically force myself to stay seated instead of following my gut instinct to spring up and race after her. The fact that I don’t know her address or her workplace or even her damn phone number means nothing to my inner caveman.
But I’m not without resources.
Besides, just because I opt for a more frugal lifestyle than most millionaires doesn’t mean I won’t use said resources when I need to.
And tonight? I really fucking need to.
I’m also a smart man. And I’m keenly aware of the fact that Emmy is not the sort of woman I can win over by flashing my money around.
No, she’s after something real, just like me.
Something about tonight scared her. I have to show her that the thing she’s afraid of? It’s just the illusion fear can bring.
That’s the only way I’ll show her that she can let herself be mine.
Slipping my phone from my pocket, I begin swiftly tapping away, sending texts and emails to all the right people. In the morning I’ll make phone calls.
Emmy might not want me. But I’m sure as hell not going to just wait and see what happens. She’s a woman worth pursuing, and I intend to do exactly that.
Emmy
The thing about mistakes is that some of them aren’t as easy to undo as they were to make.
Once Kate calmed me down and I got over the after-alcohol jitters that always hit me when I drink, this fact hit me like a thunderbolt.
And it hasn’t stopped.
It’s been two days since Oliver stormed the gates of my heart and I’m still not able to get over him.
Yes — get over him. Because even though I realized that I need more of him, no matter the risk, I’d forgotten one thing.
I don’t have his number.
I’m not about to turn stalker to track him down either.
So I’m left with one option — I need to accept my mistakes and work through the grief of losing Oliver because of them.
It sounds easy when you say it out loud. As a therapist, I know that it’s anything but, and now I’m living that truth.
It fucking sucks.
But what else can I do? In the space of mere hours, my life split into three fractured parts.
There was the before — before I knew Oliver, when everything was fine. Perhaps a bit boring, but fine enough.
And then there was the during, the hours that I had him, that we had sex. The memory of our time together makes my nether regions pulse with need and my face flush bright to the tips of my ears whenever I think of it.
Finally, there is the after, which is what I must now live with forever. And even though Oliver was barely a blip on the radar when you look at my life as a whole, he’s changed everything. The after is identical to the before, except now what once was fine is painful and harsh, and I long for the one person I can’t have.
Because after what I did, why would he want me?
There’s kickboxing tonight again. Of course I’m going, because what the hell else am I supposed to do? Stay at home and curse myself for my stupidity?
I won’t. So I’ll go.
But I refuse to hope that Oliver will be there too. My brain knows there’s no way in hell that he’d risk more damage by seeing me at class, even from afar, and I don’t blame him.
I hurt him.
I hurt myself.
This is why love is terrible, why I’ve never trusted myself with its awesome power.
But now I can also see why it’s worth the risk, like Kate said. Because those few hours I had with Oliver before I mucked it all up? They were some of the best hours of my life. I wouldn’t trade them, not for anything.
I finally understand that Shakespeare quote, which I’ve always thought was sentimental and simpering — it really is better to have loved and lost than to miss out entirely.
I just wish I’d known that before I ruined everything. Maybe I wouldn’t have let my own fears get in the way of whatever happiness, whether the fleeting or forever kind, awaited Oliver and I.