With love,
Ginger
I read the message twice, the first time in complete disbelief and the second time with rage boiling inside me. She fucked up my entire life, and she wants me to forgive her for that and pick up where we left off? We “left off” when her husband caught her giving me a blow job. Is she for real? I block her, delete the message and empty the trash so there’s no chance I have to see that bullshit again.
Disgusted, I get up and step away before I’m tempted to hurl my laptop against a wall. I take the beer with me to the small balcony that adjoins my room and look down over the hotel’s pool area, which is still busy even at almost nine o’clock.
Goddamned Ginger. She had to make it even worse than it already is. After making a total fool of me and costing me my job and sterling reputation, she actually thinks I might want to get back together? Is she insane?
If there’s one kernel of good news, it’s that she appealed to her husband on my behalf, or so she says, not that I think that’ll actually help. He’s not going to have the man who screwed his wife and humiliated him on his staff. What’s funny, if you want to call it that, is how she fucked with both of us. He and I ought to get together, have a beer and talk about the many ways she did us both wrong. We might even be friends after that, a thought that makes me laugh.
As if.
I’d never claim to have been a saint in my dealings with women, but married women are a hard limit for me. Not that good old Howard would ever believe that in light of what I did with his wife. I think about what he saw that night in his bedroom in the Hamptons and cringe. Sex with Ginger was always “energetic,” and that night was no exception. He walked in to see my bare ass and his moaning wife on her knees as she sucked me off.
“Ugh.” I down the last of the beer and go get another one, wishing I knew the location of that switch Carmen mentioned, the one that could turn off thoughts we no longer wish to have. Maybe I should focus my research on figuring out that mystery. It’d be worth billions to people who’d give anything to be able to selectively forget upsetting or painful things.
I wish I’d never checked my email, even if it was mostly uplifting, with supportive messages from colleagues and friends. I didn’t need to see the nonsense from Ginger, not when I’ve been making progress in trying to move on from that shit show.
Grabbing my phone, I sit on the bed and open a text to Carmen. Talking to her makes me feel better. Why? Who knows? It just does.
I stare for a long time at the text that says she’s safely home before I type a reply.
I wish you hadn’t left.
Send.
CHAPTER 13
CARMEN
I’ve just stepped out of the shower when my phone chimes with a text. I wrap my hair in a towel and grab the phone off the bathroom counter.
Jason.
My heart does a funny flip-flopping thing that leaves me breathless.
I wish you hadn’t left.
What does that mean? Is he saying he wishes I’d stayed and spent the night in his bed? And if so, why does the thought of that make everything inside me go haywire? My chest feels too small for my heart and lungs. My belly is fluttering, and the hot, tight feeling of desire that’s been missing from my life for five long, lonely years has come roaring back to remind me that while Tony is gone forever, I’m still very much alive.
And I want this man.
My phone chimes with another text from him.
Sorry if that’s too blunt. He includes the smiley face and red-face emojis. But it’s true. I wish you were still here.
Before I can give in to my propensity to overthink everything, I respond to him. I wish I was still there, too.
Really? You do? <dies>
I laugh out loud at his silly reply and send the laughing and crown emojis followed by a text. Drama queen.
No, seriously. Today was just so . . . perfect. It was an absolutely perfect day, and that’s because of you.
And you. I enjoyed it, too. So much.
My phone rings, and it’s him, asking to FaceTime with me. I run my fingers through my wet hair and take the call. “If I look frightening, it’s because I had no time to brush my hair.”
“You couldn’t look frightening if you tried.”
I swallow hard at the sight of him sitting up in bed, his chest bare and the sheet gathered around his waist. Is he naked under there? I zero in on the golden hair that covers his chest and abdomen, arrowing down toward the sheet. I lick lips that’ve gone dry as I check him out. “You should see me first thing in the morning.” The words are out before I take a second to contemplate what exactly I’m saying.
He responds with a wolfish grin that melts my panties. Oh wait, I’m not wearing any. Crap. “I’d love to see you first thing in the morning. When would you like to do that?”
I giggle like a silly girl, which is exactly how he makes me feel. Like I’m once again young with my heart still intact the way it was before tragedy shattered my world and crushed me. I’ve forgotten how it feels to be lighthearted, whole, happy, excited for the future. These emotions wash over me in a tidal wave of elation that meeting Jason has brought back into my life.
“I apologize for being inappropriate,” he says, bringing me back to reality.
“You were joking. I know that.”
“Um, well, no, not really. I can’t stop thinking about being with you and kissing you and how amazing that was.”
“It was pretty amazing.”
“I’m glad you think so, too.”
“I do.”
“So yeah, not joking about wishing I could see you first thing in the morning, and all the rest of the time, too.”
He’s so cute and so sexy and so . . . I have to stop myself from diving straight off the cliff into whatever this is with him. I have to remember the years I spent in school preparing for my new job. He is my job for the time being, and as much as I want to take that dive, I probably shouldn’t do that right now. Although, after kissing his face off, it’s a little late to be warning myself off him.
“I know what you’re going to say.”
I eye him skeptically. “So now you’re a mind reader and a brain surgeon?”
He laughs, which makes him even sexier, if that’s possible. “Yes, they teach us how to read minds in neurosurgery school. It’s part of the first-year curriculum. And what you were going to say is that we’re working together, and this isn’t the time for it to become anything more than that.”
“They taught you well in neurosurgery school.”
“Thank you. I am good at what I do. When I’m allowed to do it, that is.”
The sadness I see and hear from him has my heart going out to him. “Are you getting crazy being cut off from work?”
“A little. It’s been years since I went this long without drilling into someone’s skull.”
I sputter with laughter. “You’re sick.”
“I know it must seem that way to someone who doesn’t do what I do, but to me, skull-drilling is just another day at the office.”
“It’s a really amazing thing to be good at.”
“I always thought so, too, until it was taken from me.” He sips from a beer bottle. “I got an email from Ginger.”