“Hey! Where’s my hug?” came Matt’s gruff voice. A moment later, he ascended the ladder at the edge of the water and hopped up on the warm pool deck. Water dripped down his bare chest and off his navy-blue swim trunks, and his shaved head glistened under the hot afternoon sun.
“Janie’s preggers,” Ryan called as Matt reached for the towel on the nearby chaise lounge.
“No shit!” Rubbing the towel over himself, Matt made his way over to them, shooting Jane a big, genuine smile. “Congrats, darlin’.”
Jane grinned back, pretending to fan herself. “I love it when you call me darlin’. Where you from again, Matty? Georgia?”
“Tennessee,” Matt drawled, thickening his accent, which barely made an appearance after all his years of living out west. “I’m flying out there in a couple hours, actually. It’s my mom’s birthday tomorrow so I’m heading there for a visit.”
“Nice, have fun. I should get going too,” Jane said, shifting her purse to her other shoulder. “Beck and I are going to look at a few places.”
She gave each of them a hug and kiss on the cheek, even Matt, who was still all wet. Then she offered her usual cheerful wave and flounced off, while Ryan watched after her, feeling slightly dismayed.
“Get that look off your face,” Matt sighed, slinging his towel around his neck. “She’s off-limits.”
“I know she’s off-limits.” Ryan’s lips tightened. “You don’t have to remind me of that every time she’s around.”
“Yeah, I do. Because I see the way you look at her, and it’s not healthy, man. She’s having a baby with Beck, for God’s sake.”
Ryan didn’t answer. Fuck, he should have never told Matt about his attraction to Jane, but the guy was his best friend. Besides, Matt had the uncanny ability of knowing things without Ryan even telling him. They’d gotten drunk a few months ago and when Ryan mentioned Jane’s name in some random, unimportant sentence, Matt had quietly set down his beer and said, “You have a thing for her, don’t you?” Just like that. Ryan ended up confessing his completely improper feelings, which he now regretted, seeing as Matt rode him about the issue whenever he could.
“You need to distract yourself,” Matt said as they drifted toward the back entrance of the building. “Go out tonight or something.”
Ryan shrugged. “Don’t feel like going out.”
“Then visit the lovely Christina.” Matt grinned. “I mean, I know she likes me better, but since I won’t be around, I’m sure she’d be willing to settle for second best.”
“Funny.”
They entered the stairwell landing and climbed the two floors to their apartment. Matt immediately made a beeline for his bedroom, calling out, “Gotta finish packing” while Ryan headed to the small kitchen and grabbed a beer from the fridge before flopping down on the living room couch. He untwisted the cap and took a long swig of alcohol, hoping it would soothe the lump of sadness and faint bitterness stuck in the back of his throat. Damn, he was pathetic. He had absolutely no business wanting Jane. She was his friend. She was Becker’s pregnant fiancée. And besides, what could he really offer her, even if she was available? He’d never been in a long-term relationship before, wasn’t sure he even wanted one.
Matt was right. He needed a distraction.
The red numerals on the DVD player’s clock read four thirty. Christina volunteered at the hospital every afternoon until five, then worked as a bartender at a local bar until midnight. She wouldn’t get home until close to one, which meant he had about, oh, eight hours to kill before he could pay her a visit.
Ryan leaned his head back on the sofa cushion and forced all thoughts of Jane, Becker and their new baby from his head. Fuck, it was going to be a long night.
Annabelle Holmes took another sip of her vanilla and lavender tea and glanced down at the lined sheet of paper in front of her. She’d torn the page from the legal pad sitting on the nightstand, and now she stared at her own loopy handwriting, wishing she hadn’t written anything down. It made the words feel a little too…real. And they weren’t real. They were fiction, fantasy, just a silly exercise meant to prove to Bryce that the speech he’d unleashed on her two days ago was pure and total bullshit.
I need to walk on the wild side, Annabelle.
Translation: the vanilla sex we’ve been indulging in is boring the shit out of me.
It wouldn’t hurt either one of us to experiment.
Translation: you’re a prude in bed and I’d like to screw around with someone a tad more adventurous.